Phoning it in
by dogbertcarroll
Summary: A CYOA Story with a twist, an SI with no knowledge of the setting but the ability to escape anything except his fate.
1. Chapter 1

**Phoning it in 1**

I suddenly awoke to find myself lying on a dirty sofa in a back alley of a city I've never been to before. Right away I knew I was in an SI.

Let me say right up front I like reading SIs, I like writing SIs, but I hate being in an SI. To quote a midget with hairy feet, 'an adventure is someone else going through a rough time.' at least I think that's how it goes.

I mentally go over what I know. I have to survive ten years in this place and something is going to be coming after me by attacking the city in a month. I get the impression of something like Godzilla, but nothing more than that.

Well, fuck.

I'm a bit mollified when I go over my power list, as I seem to have made myself into a copy of Merlin. Not the magician, well actually he was a magician and the Merlin you are thinking of was named after him.

Let me get back on track. I have to survive ten years in a place where Godzilla is going to start hunting me down in the space of a month... and I have to be here for it. I can feel the geas placed on me.

I need time to think, a lot of time.

I hear gunshots not quite in the distance and decide to stretch my legs and gain some time. Standing up I focus on my surroundings. I'm in a back alley with a dirty sofa and a lot of trash. There is broken glass and graffiti everywhere, with swastikas featuring prominently. This is not a good neighborhood.

I check the sofa for loose change and find a little over a dollar, two disposable lighters, and a pocket knife. Better than nothing and the change looks like normal American currency so I guess I'm in America.

Taking a deep breath I take a step forward, the alley shifting around me, the graffiti changing languages. I take another step and the sofa turns into an easy chair and the graffiti is now in day-glow colors. A few more steps and the noise of the city vanishes, as does most of the trash and the graffiti, instead there is grass growing through cracks in the sidewalk.

I can feel the countdown till Godzilla attacks slow to a glacial pace, like an hourglass dropping a single grain of sand a day.

I take a deep breath as I exit the alley and find the air hotter and cleaner. I'm in an LA without a trace of smog or people. It's obvious that the city is deserted, yet the street lights are still functioning.

I need something to eat and a solid plan to avoid getting stomped on by a size twelve thousand foot, but I have time now, so most of my completely reasonable (and in no way cowardly) panic is gone.

I like this version of LA, it's one of the places I thought had the calmest apocalypse of anywhere, even Miranda. A comet passed close to the Earth and everyone had been instructed that it might cause electrical interference so all flights were grounded and all vehicles parked when it occurred.

I'm not sure why this world differed so much from most modern Earth's, especially other ones where it was sometime in the mid 80's, but something happened in World War II that caused them to be a lot more safety cautious when it came to power plants, operating machinery, and even household appliances in general.

It'd been a month since the night of the comet and yet there were no fires or floods and the streetlights were still on and the power plants humming along, despite the fact that less than a dozen people were probably still alive in the entire North American continent.

I spot a 7-11 and head for it. I'm a bit hungry and hopefully their Slurpee machine is still running. The doors open at my approach and a blast of cold air hits me. There are piles of clothes and red dust scattered about inside, unlike outdoors where wind and rain cleaned up everything. I'm tempted to snag a bit of the jewelery laying there, but there are better places for that, ones that aren't so ghoulish.

I walk out of the store with a fountain drink and a bag full of snacks not more than a minute later, the Slurpee machine was frozen solid and the rotisserie chicken and hot dogs qualified as jerky at this point. After the cool of the air conditioned store the heat seems like a bit much so I take off my jacket and hear a clinking noise.

Going through my jacket's pockets, something I should have done earlier, I discover five glowing vials. Each vial has a word written on it followed by a symbol of some sort. They read: Energy, Mass, Acceleration, Gravity, and Forethought.

They practically cry out for me to drink them, so naturally I put them away. I don't care what my instincts say, I'm not drinking a glowing vial of unknown fluid without a damn good reason!

Merlin's memories not withstanding, you'd think I'd be a lot less accepting of all of this, but I'm pretty calm. Sure I was a bit panicked by knowing Godzilla wants me dead and I'll have to face him, but even that was just a fraction of the mind numbing terror I should have felt.

Despite the fact that its been a month and all of the red dust was gone and most of the clothes had been washed or blown away, there was still a lot of shoes and jewelry lying around, in the gutters. I start collecting gold and silver chains, just for something to do as I walk along the sidewalk looking for a good hotel to stay at.

I round a corner and find myself looking at the beach. As I take in the many signs and the tropical island theme I realize I'm not in LA I'm in the Tropics. I had been aiming for LA and gotten somewhere near the Equator, no matter how you slice it my aim is lousy. Well at least I got the right world, the multiple piles of red dust that used to be people don't lie.

I walked along the beach, sipping my soda and eating junk food, those five vials clinking in my jacket pocket as I walked calling out for me to drink them and being firmly ignored. I watched the seabirds circle over the beach and wondered why only humans had been affected by the comet. Or was it only humans? Maybe it just affected large mammals. I don't know. All I really did know was that humans had all been reduced to red dust and nothing else appeared to have been touched.

I saw what looked to be a good sized black... dog? No, it's face was too flattened and its head too round. It looked a little like a Koala but its face was all wrong, having an overly large eyes and nose, and its mouth was huge for its size.

As I approached it turned its head to look at me and its eyes widened, clearly surprised. The sky clouded over quickly and it bolted, running on two legs as the sky opened up and poured warm water down on me like I was taking a shower. It was rather nice truthfully.

I followed its tracks in the sand. It was about two thirds my size but left much deeper prints. It was also dripping some kind of... ink? It was leaving a trail of black in the sand, which would have made it easy to follow even if it hadn't left deep grooves in the sand.

The sky suddenly cleared up as quickly as it had clouded over and the black mutant koala bear returned. Whatever had panicked him was gone as he looked at me in wonder and slowly reached out to poke me with a single digit to make sure I was real.

When I didn't pop or vanish he smiled. He didn't behave like an animal regardless of how he looked, so I decided to treat him like a person. I extended my hand. "Name's John, glad to meet you."

He almost reached for my hand before suddenly dropping to all fours and saying," Bark, bark."

I blinked and retracted my hand. He hadn't barked he had said the word bark. Oh well, I've met stranger. "Good boy?" I offered.

He nodded at me and said, "Woof," Seemingly satisfied with my response.

"Wanna go to the local grocery store and microwave some frozen pizzas?" I asked. He nodded rapidly. "OK, boy, lead the way."

"Bow wow," he said and waved for me to follow him before dropping on all fours and heading inland.

I followed him. If he wants to claim to be a dog, who was I to argue?

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**

 **Worm CYOA Setup!**

 **Difficulty: Standard - 6 free points  
Type: Self Insert**

 **(4) Copy Character Sheet - Merlin son of Corwin chosen.  
(2) Power Manipulation - Muahahaha!  
(1) Blank - Seers can not see you!  
(1) Shattered Limiter - Powers grow stronger with time.  
(1) Special Snowflake - Powers can't be hacked.  
(1) Cauldron Vials - 5 labeled top tier power vials.  
(1) Libromancer - Ever get lost in a book?  
(1) For Want of a nail - Scion has left the building.  
(1) Inviticus - Untouchable mind.**

 **13 total - 6 for Standard 7 points of disadvantages needed.**

 **(-1) Pint Sized - young (10-11)  
(-1) Leviathan - 1 month countdown  
(-2) Welcome to The Slaughterhouse - New toy spotted.  
(-2) Wildbow? What's a Wildbow? - No knowledge of setting  
(-1) Geas - Welcome to the party - Must show up for Leviathan**

 **7 points**


	2. Chapter 2

**Phoning it in 2**

Despite the fact that the black koala can talk, he insists on pretending he can't, so he mostly communicates through hand gestures and saying dog noises occasionally. I'm guessing he wants my story.

"I amused some higher being or other and was given powers and dropped in a world where I was going to have to face a one on one fight with Godzilla in a month," I explained.

He raises an eyebrow and just looks at me, clearly thinking I'm crazy.

I hold up a fork we got from Sears when we raided it for plates and silverware. It's a heavy duty utensil made of stainless steel and moderately thick. I twist it around my finger like it's Playdoh, before pulling it off my finger and handing it to him.

He takes it between two fingers and straightens it just as easily, but he looks thoughtful while spreading chili on a sandal and eating it. He nods showing he believes I'm not quite like most people.

"Naturally my first thought was to escape, because any fight between me and Godzilla is going to end with me being stepped on at this point, so I used my power to walk through shadows to a world where time moved a lot faster and things were a lot quieter so I could figure out what to do," I explained.

He waved a claw at everything around him with an inquiring look, before eating another shoe, a left one. He seems to only eat left shoes I'd noticed.

"Why here?" I guessed and received a nod. "Well this world is called Night of the Comet, because the comet that passed by emitted some exotic radiation that reduced all humans to red sand. That means I can take plenty of time to rest and gather supplies before moving on to a friendlier world where I can train to beat Godzilla or more likely just survive him."

He nodded and ate the last of his shoes and then the box it came in before cleaning his hands on a napkin... which he then ate.

"I'm John," I introduced myself again, "What's your name?"

He opened his mouth like he was going to speak but then closed it again and shrugged.

I tried to think up a name for a mutant black koala who was pretending to be a dog but drew a blank, and then I recalled him always leaving right shoes alone while eating the left ones. "How about I call you Murphy?" I asked.

He considered that for a minute and then nodded.

I found myself yawning. Apparently even the small amount of shadow walking I'd done had taken a lot out of me and only after I'd gotten some food and truly relaxed had it hit me. "I'm going to crash in the waterbed store. We'll talk more when I wake up."

Murphy nodded as I got up and stumbled out the door of the appliance store. I could probably have just laid down anywhere and napped, but that would probably end up with me stiff and sore when I awoke so I soldiered on. The waterbed warehouse was just a few doors down. The AC hit me as I entered momentarily waking me enough that I could undress before climbing into one of the display models.

Happiness is a heated waterbed. I slept.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

There was a moment of panic when I woke up, as I'd reached down to scratch myself and discovered some major changes. Fortunately I quickly recalled that I had been de-aged to the point I was barely in double digits age wise. Opening my eyes I saw something I was not expecting, Murphy was zooming around the ceiling leaving a faint rainbow of color behind him that quickly faded. A strange ability but being some kind of alien or mutant animal I'm sure he had a few. If it was considered a super power I'd have been able to sense it, if I was touching him. The power manipulator ability was powerful but limited in its own way, too bad I couldn't modify it...

I felt like smacking myself in the forehead as it occurred to me that it could manipulate any power and that included itself. I quickly modified the ability to sense powers into a ranged ability extending to greater ranges if I concentrated on it. Immediately I sensed two individuals with powers not including myself, one was Murphy and the other was... a fish?

There was a rather fat, orange, tropical fish with two rows of blue spots on it, floating through the air and I traced the power to a goldfish bowl where the same fish swam serenely. Apparently it could project its astral form, had precognitive dreams, telekinesis, and a healing factor. A nice power combo, but in a fish?

Climbing out of bed I accidentally kicked my clothes and the clank of vials reminded me they were there and I could feel them calling me to drink them once more. Ignoring the call, I got dressed and checked on them. It seems I only have three vials now as it looks like Murphy drank Acceleration and fed Foresight to his fish.

Seeing me awake, Murphy lands at my feet looking guilty.

"The vials called to you?" I guess and he nods rapidly. "OK, I get that," I admitted. "I can't fault you on that, but why give one to the fish?"

Murphy rubs his stomach and points at the sky. I have no clue what that means, so I just shrug and examine the three remaining vials. At least I know what they do now.

There are three power sets left. Energy could be anything, Gravity was probably the most powerful vial, and Mass... Mass seemed the most promising. Vision from The Avengers' comics did some really cheesy shit with the ability to alter his own mass and his defensive uses of it were top notch. Decision made I pop open the Mass vial and down it. It tastes like... Mambo Number Five? I pass out.

Murphy shakes me awake and I can tell my guess on what the vial did was close. I can spread out my mass, turning into a cloud or condense it becoming small and super dense. This made it almost certain Godzilla can't kill me.

I pick up the two remaining vials, Energy and Gravity. They no longer call out to me, but leaving them lying around is just asking for trouble. I push them into my shadow. Being as weak and untrained as I am (despite having Merlin's memories) I can only store small items in my shadow and any half trained Amberite or Shadow Spawn could have pulled them out, but that should be safe enough for now.

I experiment turning into a cloud and then playing with my size a bit. It's actually pretty fun and Murphy flies through me a few times scattering my form a bit as I learn to reform and move around as a cloud. The fish watches us, his astral form floating around and through items as we play around. Murphy discovers a new use for his ability as he does a fair imitation of the flash on the ground.

After a few hours I reform into my normal density and get dressed. It's almost noon, meaning I slept for close to twenty hours, and I'm hungry once more. "Let's go eat," I tell Murphy, making a note to get a backpack to hold supplies.

Murphy places the fish bowl in a little red wagon that he pulls behind him as I hold the door open so he can follow me.

We hit the grocery store once more for cans of chili, frozen pizza, and picnic supplies. It feels a bit wasteful to use new silverware rather than plastic or wash the old ones, but as this world is nearly empty of people and it'll be centuries (if ever) before a human ever comes here again, I don't think anyone will complain.

Murphy also loads up on sandwich supplies, putting loaves of bread and lots of peanut butter and jelly in his wagon. I'm guessing that's his usual fare since he only watched me open the cans and work the microwave. Naturally he also stopped by the beach apparel area and grabbed a dozen left flip flops.

We return to the appliance store and I dump all the dirt dishes and trash from our last meal into a trash bag. I lay out everything for our next meal, while Murphy makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which he drops in the fish bowl. I've never seen a tropical fish eat a sandwich before but the fat little fish starts nibbling away at it, making a sizable dent in very little time. It's almost hypnotic. I go back to making a feast of greasy junkfood a couple of minutes later as my stomach reminds me I'm hungry. No I don't normally eat this way but junkfood stay fresh longer than most foods so it's safer to eat in these types of situations.

"I need some catalogs of jewelry and another of heavy duty clothing like hiking and mountain climbing," I tell Murphy.

Murphy gives me a confused look, not seeing why I would like such things.

"You'll see," I promise. "You get them and I'll show you something cool."

He nods and leaves while I mix up some lemonade. A slice of pizza floats off the table and drops into the fish bowl, following the astral projection of the tropical fish. Nice to know I have a fellow fan of Hawaiian pizza. Everything is ready by the time Murphy returns with a Sears catalog and one from Zale's Jewelers.

"Bar, bark," Murphy says, handing me the catalogs.

I paged through the Sears catalog and found a good sized backpack. Making sure Murphy was watching, I reached inside the picture and pulled it out.

A half eaten chili, pizza, and left thong sandwich falls out of his hands as he stares at me in shock.

I laughed for a minute before explaining, "Libromancers are people who can reach into books and pull things out. Now that ability has a lot of restrictions and downsides normally, however being an Amberite I sidestep a lot of them."

He almost looks like he's going to ask some questions, but instead just gestures to his ear.

"More?" I ask.

He nods his head eagerly.

I start pulling out Jewelry from the Zale's catalog while I'm talking, "Well, Amberites are fairly complicated to explain so I'll just give you a summary. There is Amber, the central pillar of existence, and there is chaos. Everything real or imagined exists between those two points and are referred to as Shadows. Now since my father is from Amber, I can walk through the Shadows to find anything I want."

"Ahhh," he said impressed.

"Now, Libromancers are much more limited, relying on the belief of mankind in general to fuel their ability and eroding the boundaries between their shadow and chaos to a small degree that rebounds on their personal existence rather than on their world. Since I'm more powerful than any of them can ever hope to be and can reach through Shadow for items unaided, I can use their abilities as a shortcut for my own, so I don't have to sit for hours in meditation to get specific items."

Murphy shrugs, not getting half of what I said, probably because he doesn't have the right background to understand it.

"I can reach into books and pull things out," I explain.

His eyes get comically wide and he runs out of the store.

"How much you want to bet he's getting a book?" I ask the fish.

The fish does not respond.

I'm just finishing my second slice of pizza when Murphy dashes in with a Star Wars novel. I grin knowing exactly what he wants.

"Lightsaber?" I ask.

"Yeah!" he agrees nodding rapidly and completely forgetting he isn't supposed to be able to talk.

Opening the book I reach in and pull out a lightsaber, feeling it shift to match the local reality as I hand it to him. "Here you go. Just try not to cut any bits of yourself off."

Murphy switches it on and a four foot beam of blue plasma forms above the hilt with a soothing hum. His grin is the evilest I've ever seen.

The astral projection of the tropical fish begins telekinetically pulling the little red wagon containing his fishbowl towards the door.

As Murphy laughs like a certain super villain I realize the fish has the right idea and follow him.

I'm sure Murphy will calm down eventually and how destructive can one little mutant animal be, even with a lightsaber?

 **Typing By: Abyssal Angel**


	3. Chapter 3

**Phoning it in 3**

I dropped a slice of pizza in the fish bowl as we watched bits of the Waterbed Warehouse fall in on itself as the lightsaber cut hole after hole in it at high speeds. "That's an impressive amount of destruction," I noted, as Murphy cut a hole through the wall next to the front door and climbed through it.

The lightsaber fizzled and went out, leaving Murphy to shake it and hit it with his hand to try and get it to work again, like you'd do with a flashlight. He seemed to come back to himself and looked around at all the destruction sheepishly. He quickly spotted us and hurried over, offering the lightsaber back, obviously embarrassed.

I accepted it back. "Yeah, the batteries on these things are only good for an hour or so of continuous use. Most Jedi battles last a couple of minutes at most and if the charge isn't fully depleted it will regenerate to a degree."

There was a loud crash as the waterbed store collapsed in on itself, which set off a chain reaction that took out all the stores on that side of the street. Murphy shrank down.

"That's actually pretty impressive," I told Murphy, trying to cheer him up. "And it's not like anyone's going to complain."

He seemed to brighten up a bit and stood up straighter before slumping once more.

I could tell what he was thinking about. "Yeah, losing people sucks," I told him. "Personally, I take comfort in the knowledge that there are worlds where everyone I lost is still alive and well."

He perked up at that and looked at me intently, a question in his eyes.

It was easy to guess what he wanted to know. "Give me a couple of years to work on my skills and I can do it. At the moment my aim kinda sucks and walking in the shadows is dangerous. My priorities are to gain strength and skill at the moment, which helps with that, but like I said it's going to take me a couple of years."

Murphy smiled broadly. A fire alarm sounded and smoke started rising from the rubble as something caught fire. Murphy buried his face in his hands while I laughed.

I picked up the Star Wars novel and pushed the lightsaber back inside of it. "At least you didn't trash the bookstore," I told him. "I'll grab a couple of books to raid for supplies and then find some place to train."

Murphy looked thoughtful, obviously considering what I told him.

I dropped the Star Wars book in my backpack and noticed that we'd spilled a little water out of the fish bowl.

The fish was watching as his astral form telekinetically moved the water back into the bowl a drop at a time.

To strengthen my powers, I need either practice or time, and I'm not all that patient a person when I have the choice. I stuck a finger inside the bowl, but the fish avoids it and I'd rather not scare the fish or splash water around, so I concentrate to add some distance to how far I can extend my ability to manipulate powers.

I manage to extend the ability out to a couple dozen feet, feeling it take at least a quarter of the energy I can feel connected to it. I'll see if I can extend that later, for now it's more than enough for me to alter the fish's power.

I can affect range with my power, now let's see what else I can do. I strengthen his telekinesis, adding a specialty of aquakinesis, and watch as he easily returns all the water back to his bowl.

He examines me, using his actual body as well as his astral form, before using his new ability to work like a fish tank's pump and send bubbles though it adding more oxygen.

He's pretty intelligent for a fish, probably a side effect of gaining psychic powers. I'm not sure how he manages to operate his body while astral projecting, normally you'd need multi-presence or something similar to pull that off and I can't sense him having that power. It's possible fish have a natural ability to do something similar since many have eyes on separate sides of their heads with non-overlapping fields of view. I consider that for a moment before deciding to do one more test. I'm not sure this will work, but if it does it'll open up a lot more uses for my power.

I power all my remaining energy into strengthening his natural ability to split his attention into a true multi-presence ability and am rewarded by the feel of him gaining that ability and the sight of his astral form multiplying into an entire school of fish.

Being able to turn natural traits into their own powers is a game changer. Give me a couple of years preparation and Godzilla's going to have to run from me!

Murphy pokes me in the side and I realize I've been laughing maniacally. I blush. "Sorry, just figured out I could do some impressive things. Let's go to the bookstore."

He waves for me to follow and starts pulling the little red wagon down the road, ignoring the flaming wreckage of half a dozen stores just across from us.

He leads us to the mall and I smiled as the crisp air conditioned air rolled over us and elevator music played in the background. Being an 80's kid I love the mall, it was a place I often went to hang out with friends, commit petty crimes, and play videogames. Plus all the end of the world movies took place in there, so I was culturally conditioned to head for them when these events occurred.

Murphy waved for me to follow him but I spotted an Orange Julius. "Let's grab a drink first," I suggested heading for it. If you've never had an Orange Julius I pity you. I hopped the counter of the open air fast food joint in the center of the mall and examined the drink machine. Now, I've never worked at an Orange Julius, but I have worked at various fast food places before so I have a general idea of what to do. They design these things so they can be run by trained chimps if necessary. You better believe I can run one. A few minutes later we are sucking down orange slush thingies like crazy. It's another half an hour before we leave the stand and that's because we have to pee.

It takes us a little while to drink ourselves sick of Orange Julius' and head for the bookstore.

Murphy waves at a Waldenbooks and says, "Tada!"

I grinned widely and quickly entered the bookstore, breathing deep the scent of ink and paper. I go from shelf to shelf tossing copies of familiar series in my backpack, two if it's ones I enjoy reading. It's a good thing I expanded the inside of my backpack or I would have run out of room quickly. I frown as I notice certain series are missing before I remember I'm in the mid 80's and a lot of the series I like haven't been written yet. Well, that's easy enough to fix.

"Murph," I call out, distracting Murphy, who is currently chewing on a sandal. "I've recovered enough to Shadow Walk, so I'm going to go. I'll come back and get you when I'm stronger, OK?" I don't wait for a reply before I turn to go. I don't like long goodbyes and although I'm not compelled to return yet, the feeling of the geas is like a leash around my neck that I can't forget.

I concentrate and take a step forward, slightly distracted by the smell of smoke that lingered on my jacket. Naturally that's the facet of reality that I end up strengthening as I concentrate on moving to a Waldenbooks in LA, some thirty plus years from now. Reality seems to flicker around me as I focus on stepping forward like a time traveler who's car broke down and is forced to hoof it. It's not quite a Hellride and I fall to my knees panting as I reach as far as I can Walk for the moment. I tried to substitute force for skill and as I look around me, I realize that was definitely not a good idea.

The smell of smoke and the sound of gunfire lets me know I am no where near where I was trying to go. The lights are out, there is dirt and debris everywhere in the store. This place has been through a war and from the sounds outside that war is still going on.

I hear a noise behind me and quickly spin around. Murphy attempts a smile and waves as he stands there with the red wagon. I sigh. "We're here until I get enough energy to walk again," I explain.

Murphy nods and flies up to a small window in the back of the store that lets in the little sunlight that keeps us from being completely in the dark. His ears go flat and his eyes go wide before he drops to the floor, shaken from what he witnessed.

"What is it?" I asked.

Murphy starts moving stiffly forward with his arms out in front of him.

"Zombies?" I ask.

Murphy shakes his head and mimes shooting while moving stiffly with his arms out in front of him.

"Robots?" I guess.

He nods rapidly.

"Just keep your head down and stay away from the window," I tell him. "The front half of this store is blocked with... looks like a semi crashed into it. Anyway we should be safe here, at least long enough for me to rest and get us someplace safer."

He nods slowly this time, calming down and looking less nervous.

"Let me find a lamp and we can block off the window so we can relax a bit," I tell him.

He looks confused and gives me a look.

"Just find me a book with a lamp I can pull out of it," I explain, as I start searching myself. I run across several fantasy novels, but I don't need a lit torch, I need a lamp, preferably electric. I'm stuffing books in my backpack as I go, since despite this not being where I intended to go it is when or close to it.

Murphy pokes me with a magazine which turns out to be a copy of Outdoor Life, a camping magazine. "Thanks," I say before I page through it finding a plethora of ads on camping gear to choose from. I pull out a box of chem lights and break a few, activating them, so we can see a little better.

"See if you can block the window, while I get us some sleeping bags and pillows."

He nods and grabs a pile of books on new age meditation to cover the small window.

I start pulling everything I can out of the magazine. I need the practice and we've got plenty of room. Took bad I can't strengthen this ability with my power manipulation... I really have to stop doing that. I keep making assumptions instead of experimenting and verifying what I can and can't do. I make a mental note to see if I can turn my non-power powers into powers I can manipulate as soon as I'm rested enough to use that ability. I'm quickly surrounded by boxes of MRE's and camping gear, along with a fair amount of hunting equipment. It's getting harder to pull things out of the magazine I have, but that seems to be because I'm running out of items left, not because I've reached my limit.

Murphy sits next to me and we listen to the sound of gunfire taper off as thunder sounds in the distance. Murphy jumps up and starts making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, giving the first one to the fish before making another two and offering one to me. I accept the sandwich and wonder what happened to Murphy that made him afraid of thunder. Hopefully he'll decide to start speaking at some point and I can ask.

We watch dozens of astral fish float around aimlessly as we eat and once I finish I start searching for a particular young adult novel which hopefully they have in this reality. I find the series I'm looking for, but the first dozen novels are missing. Fortunately, they have a hardback version that covers five books at a time I can use. I take a deep breath and reach into it. There's a little resistance but I pull out the item I'm looking for remarkably easy. I thought it would be harder for some reason.

Murphy pokes me in the side and gestures at the item I'm holding and grinning like a loon at.

"This?" I hold it up and smile. "This is an Escafil device," I explain, as I show him the fist sized sky blue cube. "This will allow you to blend in anywhere."

Before I can explain further a vent in the ceiling pops open and someone falls out, hitting the floor and cursing quite loudly. The next half a dozen or so people who drop down from it do so much more smoothly and we are quickly ringed by what looks to be a jr high version of the rebels from Red Dawn. We stare at each other for a minute in silence, well except for the one still lying on the floor cursing.

"We come in peace," a dark haired boy offers.

I look at the amount of weapons they are carrying. "Bullshit," I reply.

That kills the conversation for a moment.

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**


	4. Chapter 4

**Phoning it in 4**

"Is he ever going to stop cussing?" I ask.

"Not till he runs out of breath," a dark haired girl answers.

"Or you feed him," another boy adds.

"Murph, toss him some food," I call out causing the group of heavily armed children to spin around and finally take note of the dozens of floating fish and large pile of gear.

"Holy shit, dude!" a kid with dirty blonde hair exclaims as he notices Murphy.

Murphy drops a box of twinkies on the cursing boy who suddenly shuts up.

"You hit the motherlode here," the blonde boy says. "I don't suppose you'd care to share?" he asks hopefully.

"There's way too much for just me," I reply. "Help yourselves."

"Dude, seriously?" someone asks in shock.

"Just don't get into my backpack," I tell him.

The kids dive into the supplies and quickly replace a lot of their old or worn equipment and gear. All in all it takes nearly half an hour before they come up for air.

"Leo, make with the introductions already," a dark haired kid orders.

The polite blond haired boy sighs and begins to introduce the group to me. Most of them are just entering their teens or are a bit younger, all of them are wearing heavily worn camo gear, carrying a large assortment of weapons, and all of them look like they could use a hot bath and a lot of hot meals.

"Is there a bathroom in here?" a dark haired girl named Wendy asks.

"If not, the store next to us is a Bed, Bath, and Beyond," Eric offers. "I can escort furburger there through the vents."

"Stop calling me that," Wendy says rolling her eyes like it's an old joke between the two.

Murphy makes lightsaber noises and mimes cutting a hole through the wall.

"What is he a mutant of?" a red haired girl with the imaginative name of Red asked.

"And how is there floating fish holograms everywhere?" Stan asks suspiciously. "This is seriously freaky."

"If I'm dreaming let me know now," Eric says, "Cause I want a chance to get in a threesome before I wake up."

Bebe laughs. "Keep dreaming Eric. We either need more girls or for a couple of the guys to turn gay before that happens."

Eric turns to Leo. "Dude, I don't mean to sound queer or nothing, but I think Craig has a sweet ass and he's been checking you out."

Silence holds for a moment before everyone busts out laughing.

"Nah, but seriously, dude. What's up?" Eric asks.

"Me and my dog aren't from around here and my fish learned astral projection," I reply.

Everyone pauses and then looks towards Leo, who looks thoughtful for a moment before saying, "Ain't no way a machine could come up with something like that, he's safe fellas."

A tension I hadn't noticed seemed to go out of the group and there was a lot of clicks as safeties were engaged and weapons holstered. I can't believe the kids were so smooth I never noticed they were on a hair trigger to cut me down.

"I'm getting the others," Eric says climbing on top of a bookcase and boosting Kenny into the vent ahead of him, so he could pull him up.

"Others?" I ask.

"We left our injured two stores to the right," Leo explains. "It's a bit difficult to move around, so they guard our supplies."

"A hole in the wall would be easier to move through than the vents," I tell him, opening my backpack and reaching into a Star Wars novel inside of it.

Murphy stares at the lightsaber in my hand like a dog would stare at a stick, the kids recognize it as well.

"No freakin' way!" Red says.

I grin and activate it causing a four foot green energy blade to appear with a familiar sound. "let's make some doors."

"At least we don't have to worry about cutting any live wires or gas lines," Craig offers, as I pick a clear spot and quickly cut a five by three foot section of wall out and push it inwards.

Wendy and Red empty their canteens on a pair of dirty towels and use them to extinguish any flames or embers before Stan drags the debris out of the way.

It's rather obvious this group has been together for a long time and is very good at improvising. Hell, I didn't even consider that a lightsaber could start a fire cutting through a wall and they were already preparing for it to happen. These kids are seriously impressing me.

"Comic book store," Leo notes as we walk through the darkened store, dust everywhere but the store interior completely untouched.

A vent overhead pops open and Eric sticks his head out. "What the fuck?!"

"Lightsaber," Leo tells him, waving me to the next wall.

"Let me warn them first," Eric says before vanishing back into the vent.

"Probably a good idea," Leo agrees. "Jimmy can be a bit trigger happy."

"So... how far away are you from?" Bebe asks.

"Far enough I have no idea what's going on or what the whole robot thing is about," I admit.

"A galaxy far, far away?" Wendy jokes.

"That's not too far off," I admit. "More... sideways through time."

"I'd say you were full of shit, but you're way too strange to be from around here," Stan says. "Kyle, you want to give him the run down?"

"Sure," Kyle says. "Robot uprising, almost everyone dies from a nuclear exchange, Red plague kills off most of the adults and sterilizes everyone that's left. We'd just entered the fifth grade and were on a field trip. Our bus broke down inside a tunnel, saving us all during the nuclear exchange. So, we returned home, picked up a couple of people, and spent the next handful of years scavenging."

"We've had some laughs along the way," Leo points out, "but yeah, it's a heaping pile of suck."

"I don't suppose you have a way back to where you come from that seats a dozen?" Bebe asked hopefully.

I cut a hole in the wall and the two girls quickly smother the embers. "Yeah, I just need to rest first." I turn off the lightsaber and pretend to put it in my backpack while putting it back in a book. Leaving a lightsaber out where Murphy can get his hands on it would be beyond stupid.

Kenny and Eric introduce me to a girl named Karen who is my apparent age, with burn scars covering the left half her of her face and missing her left arm as well, a boy with metal braces on his limbs named Jimmy who stutters a lot, and a girl who is at least fifteen and has a splint on her right leg but otherwise seems fine named Shelly.

"You can get us out of here?" Leo asks intently.

"Easy as I got here, but I was aiming for some place way different, so there's no guarantee we won't end up some place worse," I warn them.

There's a lot of laughter that takes some time to die out.

"It's hard to imagine a place worse than this," Kenny says speaking for the group.

"Yeah, probably easy to find a brighter world," I said thoughtfully. I can feel the path back to the world we'd just left, it's a bit distant but easy enough to reach, it's traveling to new places that is hard.

"Can you cut a hole into Bed, Bath, and Beyond?" Bebe asks. "I'd like to sleep in a bed if possible."

"Sure," I agree, and with a little help we get the entire group back to the bookstore. Their supplies don't amount to much and were probably just an excuse to keep their injured out of harm's way.

"Where'd you get all the gear?" Shelly asks as I cut a hole into the next store and most of the group goes to examine it.

"I pulled it out of a magazine," I tell her not seeing a reason to lie and gaining a confused look from her.

"Like Paula the Pretty Princess?" Karen asks excitedly digging in her backpack and pulling out an old beat up magazine slash toy advertisement for an American knock off of Sailor Moon.

"I just reach in and pull stuff out," I explain. "The more powerful it is the more effort it takes."

"My favorite is the magic heart necklace she wears," Karen said opening the magazine to a well worn page. "It can heal any wounds, even old ones once a day!"

"Life doesn't work like that kiddo," Shelly says with a frown and then more tenderly, "sometimes you get hurt and you just have to go on."

Karen isn't listening as she runs her finger over the picture of a heart shaped jewel on a silver necklace. "It can even heal missing limbs."

I reach into the picture and whatever Shelly was about to say is lost as she stares open mouthed at the sight of my arm going into a physical object. The necklace is warm in my grasp and feels like it weighs a ton as I pull it towards me. Sweat begins to drip down my face and I can feel the pages of the magazine start to char as I pull. "Fuck!" I shout as it burns my hand and I drop it, but Karen's one hand snatches it out of midair before it can fall back inside the picture.

"Only the pure of heart can hold it," Karen says apologetically as her magazine crumbles into ash.

"What the fuck, dude?" Kenny demands as everyone has returned at my shout to see Karen holding a glowing jewel in her hand.

"But if someone who is pure of heart picks it up they are given a choice, to become beautiful, all their injured and imperfections healed, or to heal everyone around them," Karen says and a flash of white light blinds everyone.

The pain in my hand vanishes and as Karen grins, completely unchanged.

"B-but you could have been healed!" Bebe complains as she recovers. "You could have been beautiful!"

"Shut up, bitch!" Kenny growls at her. "She is beautiful!"

"I mean, we would have healed anyway, this was her shot at healing herself!" Bebe snaps at him. "I want my friends fucking perfect and a one shot heal spell could have healed her!"

Karen laughs and Eric helps her put on the necklace. "Yeah, but I can heal you all once a day now. Healing myself once is a waste compared to that."

"Well, my nobility boner just red lined," Eric announced. "Anyone else? No, just me then?"

"Jimmy?" Karen asked as Jimmy wasn't removing his braces.

"Y-yeah?" he stuttered.

"Aren't you healed?" she asked.

"I w-w-wasn't injured," he stuttered out. "M-My prob-problems are gen-gen-gen-genetic."

"Oh," she said sadly.

"Ch-cheer up," Jimmy ordered her. "On-on-one out of a dozen is d-damn good."

"Anyone here read Animorphs?" I asked pulling out the small blue cube. "It can fix Karen and, with a little fudging, Jimmy as well." What Karen did impressed me, and I can't let that kind of nobility go unrewarded.

"Are we sure I'm not just dreaming this?" Eric asked once more.

"You still ain't getting a threesome, so I think this is all real," Leo says cheerfully.

"Wait, the new standard for determining reality is me not getting my threesome?!" Eric demands.

"Yep," Shelly agrees as everyone nods.

"You guys suck!" Eric says shaking his head, before everyone bursts out laughing.

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**


	5. Chapter 5

**Phoning it in 5**

"Kenny read me Animorphs before," Karen said. "It heals physical stuff, but not genetics, right?"

"Yeah, but Jimmy can just morph someone else to skip all the genetic problems, if he can't figure out how to blend his morph with someone else's to fix it," I explained.

"That's only good for two hours at a time," Kenny points out.

"Unless he stays past the two hour limit and allows the morph to lock," Eric says, having read the series as well.

"But then he'd be stuck as someone other than himself," Leo points out. "Plus, no more morphing."

Jimmy laughed. "Or-or I could t-touch the cube again an-and start wi-with a n-new base f-form."

Everyone fell silent for a moment.

"Is it really that simple?" Wendy asks.

"Man, that is a huge plot hole," I said while holding out the box to Jimmy.

Jimmy places a hand on the cube and it glows brightly for a second. "Th-that feels w-weird," he said before looking around for someone to copy. "M-may I?" he asks me as I'm the closest.

"May not work on me, but go ahead," I offer, holding out an arm. Jimmy places his hand on my forearm, I suppress the urge to yawn, and not five seconds later I'm staring at the face of my twin. It reminds me of shape shifting practice with my cousins when I was a kid... erm I mean when Merlin was.

"I feel... strong," Jimmy says, his stutter gone as he steps out of his braces in his now smaller body and stands up, his clothes hanging loose on him.

"Yeah, but you look like a shrimp," Eric assures him, as Jimmy starts testing out his range of motion and marveling at how easy it is to move now.

I hold the cube out for Karen and after Shelly helps her put on her necklace she places a hand on the cube and acquires the morphing ability.

"Can I copy you?" she asks Shelly.

"Sure, but we better get you changed into some bigger clothes before you try and take my form or you are going to have one hell of a wedgie," Shelly warns her.

It doesn't take long for everyone to use the cube and start turning into each other. The jokes, innuendo, and perverted suggestions got pretty crazy before I figure out how to calm everyone down.

I have a couple of flyers from KFC and Taco Bell, so I start pulling out buckets of chicken and trays of tacos.

Eric actually weeps tears of joy as I give him a bucket of extra crispy with a side order of mashed potatoes and gravy.

 **After the feast...**

"I haven't been this full in forever," Red says.

"Yeah," Eric agrees. "If this is a dream, don't wake me up."

"Can you take us to a world like ours, but before the robots took over?" Bebe asks.

Stan speaks up, "Would we even fit in, in a place like that anymore?"

"How do you mean?" Leo questions him.

"We aren't the kids we were when all this started," Stan points out. "I mean... Hey Eric, someone beats up Kyle for being a Jew in the new High School they make us attend, as we are mostly high school age now, what do you do?"

"Double tap to the back of the skull with a homemade silencer for any survivors and remedial knife fighting lessons for Kyle," Eric said without thinking about it.

"Not seeing the problem here, except for him hogging all the action," Bebe said.

Stan groaned.

Leo laughed. "Remember how mad everyone used to get over little things like flesh wounds? Fellas, we ain't like them no more. We just need a good amount of supplies and some place safe from robots to be happy. The world we came from is filled with rules and laws that would chafe something awful, I reckon."

"We're still young enough they'd try to control us and make us conform," Shelly said. "Might be best if we stay off the grid and stick to the forests until we're eighteen."

"My aim kinda sucks," I admit. "I was aiming for some place quite different when I got here. I'm retracing my steps in the morning to a world with no war or robots, because a comet turned everyone into red sand, leaving everything else intact. Like I told Murphy, I need a couple years practice before I can take you to any specific place."

"Sounds like heaven to me already," Leo says cheerfully.

There was a horrible sound of metal tearing from the front of the store and in the space of a few heartbeats the kids were all in cover positions with weapons primed.

"Ok, new plan," I say grabbing my backpack and the handle of the little red wagon. "Everyone follow me to someplace else before any robots break in here."

"Move people," Leo orders, the soft spoken young man's voice commanding the group more effectively than I ever would have imagined.

"Follow," I say, stepping into the comic store while allowing my next step to be anywhere as long as it was away from robot apocalypse territory.

The world skips like the film switched reels.

The moon hangs full in the sky above us as we step into the courtyard of an abandoned castle. It looks like centuries since anyone has been here. My breath fogs the cool night air.

"Everyone here?" Leo demands scanning the group. "Any injuries?"

"All present and accounted for, no injuries, sir," Bebe and Eric chorus after a quick check.

Leo nods firmly and turns to me. "How safe is this place?"

"No idea," I admit. "I was thinking safe from a robot apocalypse but beyond that I don't know." I yawn loudly and shake my head. "I'm going to collapse now, traveling this way really takes it out of me." He nods and starts barking out orders while I pull out an unused copy of Outdoor Life and start pulling out of a large pile of camping gear for everyone.

I barely manage to crawl into a sleeping bag before passing out.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

I awake to the smell of coffee and bacon with drool on my shoulder and a knee in my kidneys. Murphy and Karen are curled up with me. I carefully untangle myself and wiggle out of the sleeping bag. All my energies are back to full as I've finally managed to get some decent sleep.

Bebe and Eric are cooking over a campfire in the middle of the courtyard, while Jenny and Leo are sipping coffee and talking in low voices. Everyone else is asleep, mostly in pairs in zipped together sleeping bags.

"Morning, Merlin," Leo says quietly but cheerfully. "Want some coffee?"

"I'm good," I tell him before taking out an Orange Julius menu and pulling out half a dozen drinks for everyone.

"You have the most bullshit abilities in all of existence," Eric says with a grin. "I so envy you!"

"You wouldn't happen to know why Jimmy is himself again, but with no problems, would you?" Leo asks. "He reverted in his sleep, but he's still healed." Jimmy looks to me for answers with a large smile on his face not especially concerned with how it happened.

"Residual self image," I reply. "I'm a natural shape shifter so he's still morphing me, but he used my ability to look like himself in his sleep."

"If you can already shapeshift why did you pull out the blue box?" Bebe asked curiously.

"Because morphing instantly heals any injury and shapeshifting doesn't," I replied. "Morphing has its limits, but it's quick and heals even missing limbs in seconds."

"Can I learn to reach into books like you can?" Jimmy asks.

"Let me check," I tell him before taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out while focusing on increasing my ability to sense powers… to powers not created by those vials. I can easily tell it works because everyone suddenly pings on my radar as morphers, well except for the fish and Murphy.

I turn my attention to Jimmy and find he has 'Morpher Locked' and all of my native gifts as a child of the Courts and of Amber. "No... but I have a similar skill you can learn since you copied me."

"Similar skill..." Leo says thoughtfully. "Did you learn that reach into book trick like you learned morphing because it was better in some ways?"

"Pretty much," I agree. "Libromancy is actually much worse than shadow shifting in most cases, but they combine really well."

"And if we all copy you we can learn that skill?" Leo asks.

"Among others," I agree.

"Are you an Angel?" Leo asks out of the blue.

"What?" I respond, confused.

"Our lives have been a large slice of hell for so long it seemed normal, but thanks to you that's no longer true. You have literally rescued us from Hell and seem determined to make our lives better than the ones we started with," Leo explained.

"If you were suddenly given a lot of power and ran across some kids in your situation, what would you do?" I countered. "I gotta exercise my powers to grow stronger, so helping you helps me as well. I'm not an Angel, I'm just not a dick."

"That makes sense," Leo agrees offering his hand and copying my DNA as we shake. "I'll do my best to learn what you have to teach."

Stan quickly picked his way through the camp after exiting the castle's interior. "Leo you might want to see this. Wendy's in the battlements keeping an eye on things, but... you better just see. I am not trying to explain this one."

Leo looks at me and I shrug. "We are far from robots, that's all I aimed for. We could be in Wonderland for all I know."

"Well let's go see where we are then," Leo says calmly, completely unfazed by anything that's occurred.

Frankly Leo impresses the hell out of me. He reminds me of my father, or Merlin's father rather, as regardless of the chaos around him he keeps a cool head and uses his commanding presence to keep order... yet when the crisis is past he can fade into the background.

Stan leads us onto the battlements, taking care to point out where to step lightly so we don't fall. Once we reach Wendy she gestures towards the clearing in front of the castle. The castle is surrounded by a forest straight out of a fairy tale, an endless sea of massive trees that breaks upon the rock that is this castle and the colors are unusually intense.

Turning to the meadow in front of the castle, I find myself a bit surprised to see half a dozen strangely colored horses, each radiating a specific power I could sense but not understand, like they were tarot cards come to life, something that I find to be a promising omen as my family… Merlin's family, uses specially prepared tarot cards as a magical tool. I can feel five major arcana and one minor, the Knight of Swords, which appeared to be a white coated azure maned stallion. The rest were all mares of varying sizes with horns and wings except for the smallest female who had neither.

"Are they dangerous?" Leo asked.

"Those horns look pretty sharp," Wendy said.

I eyed the wings all but the male and the smallest mare had. "They could fly right in if they had a mind to, but horses generally aren't aggressive."

"Not unless you're made of grass," Stan agreed.

I could feel the power of the group and it made me realized I lacked all of my... Merlin's usual magical gear. I had no magical weapons or armor, I had no spikard or trumps, I had no allies to call on nor spells hung on my mantel to cast. I was going to have to fix that and the first step to doing so would be getting some hairs from those horses. "I'm going to get some brushes and take a closer look. I should be OK, but I'd suggest everyone else stay back while I do so."

"Unicorns are only safe for virgins to be around, if I remember right," Leo says slowly. "Not many of us still have that qualification."

"You guys are only twelve or thirteen, right?" I ask.

Leo chuckles. "After the red plague no one could get pregnant and we got us a small group with no STDs and no one to pass them to us, so since we could die at any time, staying a virgin... just weren't all that important."

"You guys do know that any damage the red plague caused has been healed now, right?" I asked.

Leo froze and then exchanged glances with the others. Silence reigns for a moment before Wendy said softly," We could have children."

"I thought we'd be the last," Stan said in shock.

"We are going to need some solid birth control measures," Leo said firmly.

"What?!" Wendy exclaimed horrified.

"Havin' kids young is dangerous," Leo explained. "The main reason the age of consent is eighteen isn't because you don't know your own mind until that age, it's because giving birth young isn't healthy and is often deadly. Now I ain't saying you can't have children, I'm saying we need to wait until it is safe, for you and the baby."

"I... I guess that makes sense," Wendy said with a sigh.

"Ideally we'll have a safe place to raise the little guy too," Leo said. "There's an order to doing things and that order is; build a nest before laying your eggs."

"Shelia and Bebe are the two girls most likely to get pregnant right now," Wendy said. "They are the most physically mature."

"I ain't a doctor or nothin' but since everyone has just been cured, we got at least half a cycle before pregnancy becomes a risk, so start a count and no one has sex after that point without protection," Leo ordered. "If we can get some protection earlier that'd be even better."

"I'll pass the message," Wendy agreed.

"I think I can find you a place to build your nests," I offer. "I was just going to take you guys to an empty world so you could relax, but I think I know of a world with people you guys would fit in with.

"Really?" Stan asked surprised.

"Really," I say as I consider it. "They set their town up to make it hard for outsiders to reach. They know the meaning of privacy. Plus I think their docs are some of the best, they only deal with a small community and actually care about their patients."

Leo smiled. "I'm sure glad to hear that. I was already worrying about how I was going to become a doctor in just a couple of years."

I reach into my backpack and sort through magazines until I find one about horse grooming and drop it off the battlements. Stripping down to my boxers I stuff my clothes in my backpack and hand it to Leo.

"It's a bit cold to be runnin' around naked," Leo notes.

"Keep an eye on my backpack," I tell him before changing into my cloud form and floating down to where I'd dropped the magazine. Sure I could have warned them about what I was going to do, but this was a lot more fun and it was a harmless prank.

Opening The Local Equestrian I start going through it and look for useful items. I don't find any pants, but I do find some assless chaps, a white shirt, and a leather vest to wear. I probably look like the cowboy in The Village People, but at least I'm no longer standing around in my boxers.

I pull out a couple of watering troth and a couple of salt licks. The second troth I fill with oats before setting the salt licks alongside it and figuring out how to fill the first troth with water.

Relying solely on my… erm I mean, Merlin's magical training, I attempt to summon the water I need, carefully weaving a combination of air and dust to cause a localized rain cloud. It's a lot harder than I expect, because it called up much more power than I needed and it was hard to control it. I end up soaking myself and the ground for a couple of feet around me, but I manage to fill the troth.

I drop my wet gear to the side and pull out dry versions, briefly turning cloud again to dry myself off. Dressed and dry to find a camp stool and some brushes and wait for the horses to approach.

The Magician approaches first, she's the second smallest horse and is purple with a darker purple mane. She's a curious little horse, examining everything and trying both salt licks as well as the oats and water before approaching me.

I hold out a hand and let her smell me before I start grooming her. She makes pleased noises that sound almost like a human getting a massage. I get a number of hairs from her tail and mane as well as a few feathers just from brushing her. I pack those away in a small bag and pull out a fresh brush as I'm approached by The Empress, a larger pink horse with a tri-colored mane, purple, violet, and gold. It takes a little longer to groom her thanks to her larger size and I get a slightly greater amount of hairs and feathers.

"Can I help?" Karen asks, nearly giving me a heart attack.

"Sure, just be careful," I tell her, before I give her a brush and instructions on what to do.

Naturally Karen walks up to The Sun, an enormous white horse with a mane that constantly changes color, making it hard to tell what color it is. To my surprise The Sun kneels down to allow Karen to groom her.

The Moon is the same size as The Empress, but has a deep purple almost black coloration and her mane looks like the night sky, which seems rather appropriate. She doesn't make noises like the others do, but she keeps me working longer, nudging me to get certain areas.

I stretch a little and notice Karen is actually riding The Sun now and urging her faster as she strolls around the meadow.

I approach the smallest one cautiously so I don't spook her. The Fool flickers to Wheel of Fortune for a moment and I almost miss it. Maybe their arcana only stabilizes after they mature? Being the smallest and having no wings it takes little time to groom her and I actually have to replace my brush, as her pink poofy mane clogs the first one with hair. I go through two more brushes before I see the amusement in her eyes. I can tell when I'm being teased, so I purposely poof up her hair even more and she does that whickering noise that means a horse is laughing at you.

I noticed a pink gem in a gold setting hanging around her neck, but it's clearly magical so I leave it alone. Touching random magical items is generally a bad idea, as my seared palm can attest to. Karen's necklace left a little heart shaped scar on my right palm that it did not remove, nor did morphing.

Stallions are generally a lot more aggressive, so I left the horned but wingless white stallion with the azure mane for last. He's the only one who feels like a minor arcana, The Knight of Swords. I don't know if that has any significance or not.

As I head towards him he begins to back away until the two pink horses herd him my way. He sighs a lot like a hen pecked husband and allows himself to be pushed towards me. He's a bit larger than The Magician but lacks any wings, plus I've gotten quite good at grooming horses, so it takes me little time at all, despite the fact that his mane was a bit of a mess.

I have a good supply of feathers and hairs and figure I'm done, but the little pink one is staring at me and her arcana is flipping back and forth again. "Food, water, salt, and grooming," I tell her. "That's a fair trade for what I'm taking."

She snorts and I sigh. "Fine, give me a moment to figure out something." With magic there's a certain balance you have to maintain, so I have to pay for what I've received and apparently my current offering isn't enough, which I have to admit is true. It takes me a moment to figure out something more equitable. "OK, let's strengthen your magic," I tell The Knight of Swords placing a hand on him and calling up my power. As I enhance his magic I'm hit with a surge of healing energy as Karen calls out, "Heal," and nails us all with her amulet, trying to be helpful.

The Knight of Swords shudders under my hand and I copy his DNA to help calm him for a moment since I don't have a spell handy for that purpose as he undergoes some sort of transformation.

The Knight of Swords is now The Emperor, a major arcana. He's at least half a foot taller and has wings as well, which The Empress is examining closely.

"Satisfied?" I ask The Fool, who snickers at me again and nods.

"Good," I say and collect my bag. "Come on Karen, it's time to go."

"OK," she says cheerfully, running around to give all the horses a hug before we both head for the castle, entering through the open portcullis to find Eric and Bebe waiting for us.

"Dude, why are you dressed like the gay cowboy from The Village People?" Eric asks curiously.

 **Typing By: Abyssal Angel**


	6. Chapter 6

**Phoning it in: Side Story 1 **

**For those that requested the MLP part of the last scene...**

"Argh!" Twilight Sparkle exploded before slumping down in a pile of books, defeated.

"Are you OK, Twi?" Spike asked cautiously.

"Yes and no," she admitted with a sigh. "I'm fine, but unless I come up with a solution, my brother's going to die!"

"What?!" the young dragon exclaimed in shock. "B-but Shining looked fine when I last saw him!"

"I don't mean he's sick," Twilight said, "he's perfectly healthy, but Cadence is an Alicorn and immortal, and for that matter so am I, and neither one of us wants to watch him age and die."

"You were once a Unicorn just like him, only last year in fact, so why can't Princess Celestia do to him what she did to you?" he asked.

Twilight shook her head. "She put me on the path to becoming an Alicorn, but I had to do everything myself and everyone's path is different. Princess Celestia had several prophecies that helped guide her actions and she still made some mistakes. I have no clue where to even start with my brother and there is no magic I can find that would help me figure it out!"

"So this would be a bad time to tell you Pinkie has invited you to a party?" Spike asked.

"Until I solve this I have no time for parties," Twilight said before turning and running face first into Pinkie Pie.

"No time for parties!" Pinkie exclaimed in shock, "Are you insane?! Are you sick?! Did you develop hoof in mouth syndrome?!" she screaming in Twilight's face bowling her over.

Twilight got to her hooves with a groan. "I have to figure out how to make my brother an Alicorn and that's way more important than a party."

"More important than a party?!" Pinkie exclaimed in horror. "Sacrilege! Spike, I'll gather the villagers, you get the pitchforks and torches!"

"Right," Spike said, rushing off.

"This heresy shall not- Wait," Pinkie paused, "if I can get your brother turned into an Alicorn you can make it to my party, right?"

"Yeah," twilight agreed, "but good luck on that, I've been working non-stop for a week and I haven't found a single clue on how to do that."

"Fine, I need you to get you, Shining, Cadence, Celestia, and Luna to the Castle of the Two Sisters by tomorrow morning before breakfast," Pinkie said. "I have some preparations to make."

"Pinkie! I can't just order them around, what should I tell them?"

"Tell them Pinkie said so," Pinkie replied before bouncing off.

Twilight shook her head. "I can't see this going over well."

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"The good thing about traveling with Tia is you always know when sunrise is," Luna said cheerfully to Cadence as they followed Pinkie deep into the Everfree Forest.

"After my second cup of coffee," Celestia agreed readily.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Twilight asked Pinkie for the hundredth time. "And why can't you explain it?"

"Yes it will work and explaining it is kind of difficult," Pinkie said. "I'd have to explain my explanation and then I'd have to explain that and... and it would just go on forever!"

"How about you explain it to me and I won't ask for anymore explanations on it?" Twilight begged.

"Promise?" Pinkie asked.

"Pinkie Promise," twilight agreed, shaking hooves with her.

"Now the main problem with making Shining an Alicorn is that we don't know what kind of quests and personal growth Shining needs to accomplish that," Pinkie said, "thus we need someone from outside this fiction to change the context of the problem."

"I understood some of that," Twilight said with a sigh.

"As a fourth wall breaker I have knowledge and abilities you don't," Pinkie said with a shrug, "So I am going to gather all the pieces needed to attract an SI, which is someone who was taken from the other side of the fourth wall and pushed through it, and bribe him to fix the problem."

"And I understood almost none of that," Twilight admitted.

"Just tell us what we have to do," Shining said.

"We have to hide our cutie marks and let a strange offshoot of the ape family groom us, while pretending to have the same intelligence as a dog and keeping our mouths shut," Pinkie explained.

"Can I ask questions about this?" Twilight asked.

"Sure," Pinkie said cheerfully.

"Why do we have to pretend to be animals?" she asked.

"So we don't scare him off," Pinkie replied. "SIs can be real skittish sometimes."

"And why would he help us?"

"Because he's going to collect loose feathers and hair, so he has to pay us back for them," Pinkie explained.

"Turning me into an Alicorn seems like a steep price for that," Shining said, still not quite sold on the idea, as he was perfectly happy as he was.

"His context is different than ours," Pinkie said," so the value of what he gets will be different as well."

"So why are we hiding our cutie marks?" Cadence asked.

"So he doesn't get distracted and 'fix' the wrong thing," Pinkie said, "the last thing we need is for him to think the best way to pay us back is to start altering cutie marks. Now remember, we are just supposed to be animals so leave all books, bags, clothing, and jewelry on the trail before we reach the meadow in front of the castle," Pinkie announced.

"You're going to leave the Element of Laughter in the forest?!" Twilight exclaimed in shock.

"Nope, I'll need it to enhance my magic so he doesn't turn me into an Alicorn," Pinkie said.

"And it won't confuse things?" Luna asked.

"Maybe, but if that happens you'll all end up with new Elements and we'll simply have to try and find another way," Pinkie said as they stopped near their goal," and as an Element Bearer, Shining will age really slow so we'll have more time to figure things out. Now everypony strip!"

 **After…**

Cadence nuzzled Shining causing his wings to stiffen and making her laugh as he blushed.

Pinkie grinned as they watched the two Alicorns frolic like foals on the trail ahead of them.

"Come on guys, you can play around once we reach Ponyville," Pinkie told them. "Spike and the Crusaders should have the party set up and ready for us."

"What's this party for?" Twilight asked.

"It's the first annual celebration of Shining's ascension to Alicornhood," Pinkie said cheerfully. "I put flyers up for it last week."

Pinkie bounced ahead to keep Cadence and Shining moving forward and not wandering off the trail.

"It's really best not to think about these things," Celestia told her with a smirk as Twilight froze up, her jaw hanging open.

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**Phoning it in 6**

"It was all that was in the magazine to wear," I replied. Well, besides cowboy boots, spurs, and hats, none of which I needed.

We walked right into the end of a song and dance number.

"Kyle's mom is a big fat fuckin' bitch! I'm just talking about Kyle's mom, yeah!" Craig sang, ending with a power slide on his knees while doing jazz hands in the middle of the courtyard.

"You guys sang 'Kyle's Mom' without me?!" Eric sounded heartbroken.

"Not on purpose, dude," Kyle quickly assured him. "It just came out of nowhere."

"He doesn't like his mom?" I ask Bebe quietly.

"His parents betrayed the resistance and it cost a lot of good people their lives, including his little brother, Ike. We'll probably never know the full story, but considering his parents, it's almost certain his Mom made the decision and his father simply went along with it. Kyle changed his last name and refuses to speak of them, but even before that Eric hated Kyle's mom and made up songs about her. Get a couple of shots in him and he and Eric will sing them together. It's strange the kind of things that bring people together, but there you have it," she said quietly.

"That would do it," I agree. "Everyone read to go to the greatest place on Earth?" I called out cheerfully. I'd like to get us all some place safe before something else happens and I'd like that safe place to have running water and toilets.

"Disneyland?" Wendy guesses.

"Close enough to drive over if you feel like it," I reply surprising everyone. "I'm aiming for downtown LA."

"I think it was nuked," Leo says thoughtfully.

"The empty world I told you about. I was going to try for Las Vegas, but casinos, while entertaining, don't exactly have a lot of supplies. Downtown LA however has plenty of stores and hotels," I explain.

"No robots, right?" Red asks.

"Not unless those Terminators you told me about were invented in the mid 80's," I reply.

That garners a laugh from everyone.

"Vegas sounds cool, but I guess... Hold on a second, weren't you going to teach us to summon things?" Leo asked.

"That's a good point," I say. "Hunger is a good teacher."

"Still sounds cool," Eric says. "To Vegas!"

"OK, everyone get packed up and police that campfire," Leo orders, handing me my backpack and going to grab his own gear.

"It feels great to be able to do this myself," Jimmy says as he easily gets his gear together and then helps Karen with hers, still marveling at being able to simply stand and walk without assistance.

Murphy grabs my arm, and hands me the handle of the little red wagon.

"We'll be moving half a dozen times, not just one step," I tell everyone. "So remember to follow at each step and not wander off."

"Partner up," Leo orders. "One person keeps an eye out, the other watches Merlin."

"That works," I say, as everyone lines up behind me.

"All ready?" Leo asks.

"All ready, sir," the group choruses.

"Proceed at your own pace," he tells me.

Murphy climbs in the wagon and drops bits of bacon into the fishbowl for the fish to eat.

I take a deep breath and concentrate. A single step forward takes us a quarter of the way to our destination as the castle walls shift into a cave with a sandy floor. There is a rough hewn stone table filled with rows of glowing colored crystals, like a stone age Light Brite and a doorway sized disk of light on one wall showing a grocery store.

I take a pull of water off my canteen and stretch. Kyle grabs Stan's belt as he leans through the portal and grabs a shopping cart full of food and pulls it through the portal, leaving a confused young woman who'd just turned away to wonder where her cart went.

"Risky," Leo notes as the portal changes a second later to show a primitive forest.

The pair wince and Stan says, "Habit."

Leo nods, satisfied they are properly chastised.

"OK, next step everyone," I say. Taking a deep breath I step forward and the walls melt into rows of slot machines and the jangle of coins and chatter of gamblers fills the air. That was a bit tiring, but we're almost there.

"Holy shit," Red mutters as everyone looks around us, seeing dozens of adults relaxing, smoking, and gambling, a sight they hadn't seen in nearly half a decade.

"Last step," I tell everyone as a security guard lifts his walkie talkie to report our heavily armed group. I take a step forward and the noise of the jabbering humanity that surrounded us vanishes, leaving only the sound of the slot machines as they flash their lights and play their music to attract an audience that no longer exists.

"This the place?" Leo asks as everyone scans the area, taking note of the clothes scattered about and red sand covering a large portion of the carpet.

"This is the place," I agree. "Zero population and the utilities should keep running for... months. Maybe years."

Leo hands me my backpack and I take out a Sears catalog and start pulling out swimwear for everyone including myself, though the assless chaps were cooler than the swim trunks I quickly put on.

"By the numbers, people," Leo orders.

"Security office," Eric and Bebe chorus.

"Housing," Wendy and Stan say.

"Food and supplies," Craig and Red add.

"Normally we'd all set up a perimeter and guard against Terminators while everyone goes about their jobs," Shelly says, "but we are no longer in familiar territory and we don't need to scavenge for supplies and guard against attack, so why don't we do something different?"

"it's kept us safe and even if it's no longer needed it's familiar and will help everyone relax and feel comfortable in our new environment," Leo explains. "Tonight, we can discuss new procedures."

"Yes, sir," Shelly agrees. "Karen, Jimmy, we are no longer wounded so let's start robbing the dead. We go row by row, keep an eye out for guard uniforms as we need keys and walkie talkies."

"Looks like we're base," Kenny tells Leo as everyone departs, leaving the four of us standing there, five if you count the fish.

Leo nods and morphs into a copy of me. "OK, how does that shadow shifting skill work?" he asks.

"Normally you activate the potential by walking the Logrus or spending a couple of years studying magic and meditating," I explain, "but I've been trying to think of a way to shortcut all that and I think it'll work. Wanna give it a try?"

"Sounds good to me," Leo agrees.

"Excellent." I place my hand on his shoulder and focus on the potential to shift shadow that he gained by morphing me. It activates like I'm flipping a switch, taking a decent sized chunk of my energy with it.

"That felt weird," Leo says, shivering.

"Yeah, but it worked," I assure him. "Now lace your fingers with mine, palms up like we're holding something." We lace our fingers together and I can see Kenny resist the urge to use our hands for a chair. "What's your favorite type of pizza?" I ask.

"Hawaiian, just like my native Hawaiian forefathers," Leo assures me.

Murphy chuckles, amused at the idea that Leo thinks he's Hawaiian, but I keep mum. For all I know, blond haired white guys are the native Hawaiian population in his world. I've heard stranger.

"Try and concentrate on how this feels," I tell him as I shift shadows slowly, searching for a Hawaiian pizza.

"Cool," Kenny says as dark smoke seems to gather over our hands only to turn into a pizza box with Greek writing on it a moment later.

"Only more time?" Leo requests.

"Sure," I agree. "But this time a meat lover's," I tell him.

"Got it," Leo says with a smile as another pizza appears in our hands, this time in a metallic looking cardboard box.

"Why are the boxes so different?" Kenny asks.

"Because I was concentrating on the pizza, not the container," I explain. "You get what you want a lot quicker and easier if you only focus on the important aspect, leaving the inconsequential bits to sort themselves out." I release his hands.

"What should I try for?" Leo asks as we set the pizza boxes on a change machine and open them.

"Soda," Kenny tells him.

"Alright," Leo agrees and closes his eyes. It takes him nearly a full three minutes before he manages to materialize a case of cola. "It worked!"

"Generic?" Kenny asks as he examines a can which is simply white with blocky black lettering labeled COLA.

"Figured it'd be easier," Leo replies. "I was more concerned with it being cold."

"Not quite what I meant by only concentrating on the important bits as it's easy to get name brand as generic, in fact I think it took you more effort to get generic specifically, but making sure it was cold was a nice touch," I admit, before eating a slice of pizza.

"My turn," Kenny says, holding out his hand to me.

He quickly copies my DNA and morphs into me so I can activate his ability to shadow shift. He picks up the basics right away adding breadsticks and dipping sauce to the pile before experimenting himself.

Wendy and Stan returned first.

"Where did you guys get pizza?" he asks.

"He taught me and Kenny how to summon things by using it to summon lunch," Leo replies cheerfully.

"Cool, can you teach me?" Wendy asks.

"I can teach five people tomorrow," I reply. "I'm tapped out for right now."

"Tapped out?" Wendy asks.

"I can enhance a certain amount each day," I explain. "I've reached my limit for the moment, but tomorrow I can enhance five of you to do it as well."

"Woof," Murphy says pointedly.

"Or four and Murphy," I say. "Did you use the morphing cube?" I ask him.

Murphy grabs my hand and I yawn as he acquires my DNA. He shifts into my form with a fluid grace that no one else, not even me, has shown.

"You're naked," Wendy points out to him.

"I'm always naked," he replies easily, before taking two slices of pizza and dropping one in the fishbowl, which erupts in floating tropical fish once more as a few dozen astral fish start exploring the room.

"You can talk?" Stan asks.

"Woof," Murphy deadpans and grabs a soda.

"We grabbed the keys to a five bedroom suite from the front desk," Stan says, changing the subject. "It was reserved for someone named Tom Jones."

Leo nods. "Nice work." Turning to me he asks, "How do we shape shift?"

"Morphing is like flipping a switch but the feeling is similar," I explain. "Just picture how you normally look and concentrate on wanting to look 'normal' again. The hard part will be not accidentally morphing while doing it."

The three copies of me close their eyes and immediately morph back to normal. It takes at least half a dozen shifts before they manage to control it enough to tell the difference between the two abilities.

"This is difficult," Leo says with a sigh. "It's like trying to type a letter with your eyes closed while someone keeps moving the keyboard."

"When we acted up as kids, they'd make us mirror changes on each other to practice, instead of letting us do it the easy way with a mirror," I tell him before realizing what I said.

"Easy way?" Stan asks with a grin.

"Sorry, it's been so long I forgot," I apologize. "To be considered a master of shapeshifting, you have to be able to do it in your head on the fly, but the basic skills are easy to learn if you have a mirror handy."

The three walk an aisle over to use the mirrored wall while Stan and Wendy laugh. Leo returns just a minute or so later looking like a taller, handsomer version of his base self.

"That is so cheating," Stan complains.

"If you got it, flaunt it," Leo says with a smile. "And if you don't got it, go and get it."

"Couldn't agree more," Kenny agreed, as she showed off curves he didn't have five minutes ago, as a blonde playboy centerfold wearing a micro bikini.

"I honestly can't say I'm surprised," Wendy says with a shrug while everyone else agrees.

Murphy grins at everyone as they stare at him. He's six feet tall and covered in light blue fur. Even the fish has half a dozen projections eying him.

"It's the Cookie Monster," Stan says after minute.

"What? I like the Cookie Monster," Murphy says. "I mean, woof."

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**


	8. Chapter 8

**Phoning it in 7**

"Everything's clear on the cameras," Eric reported as he and Bebe returned, wearing security guard outfits complete with weapons and radios, that they'd found in the security office. They were a little large on the pair, but the additional holsters for their personal weapons helped them fit.

"Dude, pizza!" Bebe said happily.

Leo held out a hand and concentrated on a grey mist forming above his hand that quickly turned into another pizza that he handed to her. "Meat lovers," he said with a grin as he showed off his new talent, "extra spicy."

"I thought it was going to take months for you to learn that," Eric said as Bebe mumbled her thanks through a slice of pizza and slapped away his questing hand.

"I figured out a way to cheat," I told him. "I can get you all squared away by the end of the week."

"That is so cool," Bebe said, as she came up for air and Leo summoned a pizza for Eric.

"Ahem," the curvy blonde in the tiny bikini tried to get their attention.

"Hey, Kenny," the pair chorused easily.

"What? How?!" Kenny demanded, upset they weren't surprised.

"How what?" Eric asked innocently.

"I think he did something different with his hair," Bebe staged whispers to him.

"It looks good on you, Dude," Eric tells Kenny.

"You saw us on the cameras," Kenny realizes, shaking his head.

"Yep," the pair reply with a grin as everyone laughs.

"We've got stupid amount of purses and jewelry," Shelly announces as she arrives, pushing a laundry cart filled with everything they'd collected.

"There is jewelry everywhere," Karen agrees decked out with enough gold and jewels to make an LA rapper jealous.

"It took longer to find the carts than it did to fill them," Jimmy agrees pushing a second cart.

"Any radios?" Eric asked.

"A dozen of them, but the batteries are dead," Shelly replies, brushing her hair out of her face.

"There are charging stations for them in the security office," Eric points out, "We can run them over there while you guys eat."

"Here," Jimmy says pulling a backpack out of his cart. "I stuffed all the security stuff we found in here."

"Excellent," Eric said. "Bebe, care to help me?"

Bebe turned to Leo a questioning look on her face.

"Go ahead, just keep a weapon handy," Leo tells the pair.

Bebe and Eric grab some sodas and their pizzas. "Call us if you need us," Eric says handing his radio to Leo. "Bebe's is charged."

"Soon as Craig and Red return, we'll head up to the penthouse," Leo tells everyone while Kenny summons more food, taking her time and looking a little winded from her efforts.

"Do we really need to keep carrying weapons?" Shelly asks suddenly, locking eyes with Leo.

"Not at all," Leo says pleasantly, completely unfazed by her behavior. "Here, hand me yours."

Shelly passes him her pulse rifle and a brace of grenades, but she starts moving slower as she removes her belt holster for her .45. Her eyes dart around and her grip on it tightens. "I... you made your point, sir," she says, quickly putting her holster back on her belt and accepting her weapons back, her shoulders slumping. "I won't challenge you on this."

"Now Shelly," he says kindly, "don't go getting the wrong idea. I wasn't making a point and there's nothing wrong with challenging me if you think you know better."

"Looked that way," Jimmy points out, quick to back up Shelly.

Leo sighs. "Any commands you want to give you have to be willing to follow yourself. I didn't know that you'd feel naked without any weapons."

"But you suspected it," Jimmy said.

"Yeah, but Shelly's also the one that could probably put them aside the quickest," Leo points out. "So if she could, maybe some of the rest of us could too."

Shelly sighs. "Every time I think you're doing something unnecessarily warlike and aggressive, you pull something like this and I realize I'm the one being confrontational."

"Yeah, but I get you Shelly," Leo tells her gently. "All you've ever wanted is for things to go well for everyone. You want it all quiet and peaceful, orderly even."

"Yeah," she agrees softly.

"But war ain't orderly," he says with a shrug, "and I am the very Son of Chaos when I feel the need to be," he says intently.

That line should have sounded a lot cheesier than it did. I mean, I am literally the Son of Chaos and I probably couldn't pull off that line.

Shelly nodded, eyes locked on his as she licks her lips.

The group begins to leave, pulling me and Murphy along with them.

"Is there a reason we are leaving those two alone?" I ask.

"You'll understand when you're older," Stan tells me.

"Should have grabbed a pizza on the way out," Karen says, picking up another gold necklace off the floor and putting it on, almost overbalancing and falling over.

"Let's hit the blackjack table," Kenny says. "I'll summon up some more food and we can play cards."

"I doubt they'll take that long," I say, realizing what was going on.

"You'd be surprised," Jimmy says with a sigh.

They leave the carts in the aisle and take seats around the black jack table, brushing red sand off the stools.

"Chinese food," Kenny says, as she takes the dealer's spot and slowly summons a number of small food containers one at a time.

"Pretty sure this one's in Russian," Jimmy says as the little red wagon squeaks up to the table, telekinetically pulled by a number of astral fish. Apparently he didn't feel like sticking around to watch the pair either.

"Are they always like that?" I ask, as I start making a mental list of things I need to make and considering what kind of training I should give the kids in the use of my powers.

"No, it's like some switch flips in their heads," Wendy explained. "Most of the time, Shelly takes care of the injured and keeps camp, leaving Leo to take care of everything else, but at least once a week Shelly challenges him and he proves he knows better than her."

"And then the pair go at it," Stan says with a shrug.

"Usually we'd have someone keep watch while they were distracted, but I believe we can skip it this time," Wendy says.

"Most of the time they aren't even interested in each other," Jimmy says, shaking his head.

I'm not getting involved in the drama of teenage love lives I decide and quickly change the subject, "How do you guys feel about learning psychic abilities?"

"How many powers do you have?!" Kenny demands cutely.

"Lots," I reply cheerfully. "Being of Amber and the Courts gives me a large amount to start and an easy way to get more."

"That walking thing," Stan guesses.

"I can't teach you that, but I can teach you how to talk to each other mentally and how to teleport to one another," I offer.

"I... I think I need this explained from the top," Wendy says slowly and the others nod.

I grin. "OK, everyone has used the morphing cube which allows them to become a perfect copy of anything they touch that has DNA. Copying my DNA gives you the very basic abilities of my people."

"Your people are stupidly overpowered," Kenny says.

"Very much so," I agree cheerfully. "If you were writing a character sheet for one of my people in D&D, all the stats would start out at nineteen."

"Kinda weak and squishy," Murphy says.

I ignore that as I've seen how destructive Murphy can be and the depth of his tracks in the sand says he's incredibly dense physically, so I probably am squishy in comparison.

"We are natural shape shifters, have incredibly long life spans, and a great deal of psionic and magical potential," I finish.

"Is the Shadow stuff psionic or magical?" Kenny asks, as she holds out a hand and summons a small squid that she immediately drops on the table with a frown and wipes her hand on her chest.

"No idea," I reply cheerfully. "It's probably a third thing. I can cheat and teach you shadow shifting to summon small items, but I have no intention of going anywhere near the Courts or Amber, so you guys will never learn shadow walking. Sorry, but they'd kill us all for having royal blood and not actually being related."

"We're royalty?" Kenny asks.

"Princes of the universe," I agree, wondering if I should stop in a Highlander Universe to steal Ramirez's sword at some point.

"Can you teach us magic?" Karen asks excitedly.

"Nope, that takes decades," I tell her. She pouts, but the fact that she is wearing half her body weight in gold and jewels robs it of all effect. "What I am going to do is make each of you a set of trumps, which are sort of magical playing cards that make it easy to contact each other mentally."

"Summon a bowl of water," Stan tells Kenny as the small squid flops around on the table, suffocating in the air.

Kenny manages to summon a respectable sized aquarium that she drops the squid in. "The whole shadow shifting thing rocks, though it's a little tiring." She wipes sweat off her brow.

"It gets easier with practice," I tell her.

"Plenty of food in the kitchens," Red announces as she and Craig show up.

"Yeah, though I'd avoid the buffets, they look like the heat lamps have mummified them," Craig says.

"Then why did you grab those nuggets?" Red asks.

"It's like chicken jerky," Craig says, "I like 'em."

She shakes her head. "Where is everyone?"

"Not even going to ask about Cookie Monster and the blonde?" Wendy teases.

"Probably Murphy, though it could be the fish," she admits. "And that's definitely Kenny."

Kenny just stares at her.

"I know what your ideal woman looks like and I know your eyes," Red tells her.

"I'd totally do you, but I hear I'm gay," Craig deadpans, before eating another mummified chicken nugget.

Kenny grins and summons a banana split, setting it in front of Craig.

"Then again you do have an ass almost as sweet as Leo's," Craig says with a huge smile as he accepts a spoon.

"Sorry, I'm gay," Kenny says cheerfully.

Craig pauses to think about that, a confused look on his face.

"Kenny, stop playing with his head," Wendy orders.

Kenny giggles.

"Shelly challenge Leo?" Red guesses.

"And Eric and Bebe are recharging radios in the security office," Wendy agrees.

"They gave us the all clear," Stan explains.

"Figured that when I didn't see anyone on guard," Red replies.

It's blindingly obvious that these kids need some serious mental help, of course considering what they had been through that really wasn't a surprise. I figure a nice long vacation to relax and unwind would be best before I take them to 'The People'. I'd really like to avoid them shooting anyone, or stabbing them for that matter.

It'd be nice if 'The People' had another name for themselves I could use, as every group calls themselves that in their native language and people generally just use the local language version of it as a new term in their own language to distinguish them. Unfortunately with telepaths you don't get a spoken version you can use, so you can't even do that.

Meh, that's thoughts for later, for now I needed to train these kids in the very basic of mental arts. That should help with their mental stability now and possibly their therapy later.

"So he's... a lesbian?" Craig guesses.

"Just eat your Sunday," Red tells him kindly.

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**


	9. Chapter 9

**Phoning it in 8**

Everyone dropped their gear in the Livingroom and explored the luxurious suite. It had seven bedroom and four bathrooms. There was a small kitchen off to one side with a full stocked fridge.

I only had to throw out the milk and some fresh fruit that had gone bad. I cheated by shoving them into Shadow before summoning replacements. Shoving things into Shadow isn't a common skill, I'm not sure why. It's a bit noisier than most Shadow techniques and only works on small items, but it makes it really easy to dispose of trash.

Now that I think about it, that's probably why it's not a common skill, my family treats entire worlds as disposable and generally has a number of servants to take care of any trash, allowing them to be complete slobs. Nah, they probably all know it, hid that fact, and use it to dispose of evidence while going about their numerous schemes. Yeah, that sounds a lot more like them.

"They have cartoons!" Karen calls out excitedly from the main room.

Everyone rushes in to join her as she turns up the volume on the TV and A Transformer's Christmas Special plays.

I would have bet any amount of money the kids would have changed the channel rather than watch anything robot related, but they watched with wide smiles with only Stan and Wendy keeping an eye on the possible entrances and exits, guns casually pointed, while watching the cartoon with half an eye.

Halfway through the show someone knocks on the door in a certain pattern and everyone returns their attention to their surroundings. Stan moves to the side of the door and reaches over to knock three times, which is then answered by another knock and everyone relaxes and he opens the door, revealing Shelly and Leo.

"Dude, toons," Craig tells the pair and they quickly join everyone in front of the TV, Leo pausing to give an approving nod to Wendy and Stan, who sat a little taller afterwards.

"How is everything still playing if there's no people?" Wendy asks, switching seats with Kenny, who runs a quick check on her weapons.

"In-house programming," I explain, "motels like to keep everything in house so they can air their own ads. It also lets them charge extra and provided targeted content."

"Porn," Craig says cheerfully as Karen pages through the movie index.

"Down in front," Red orders, waving a hand through one of the fish's astral projections that have wandered in front of the screen. It circles around her hand a few times before swimming off, much to her amusement.

"What should we watch?" Karen asks.

"Something fun," Leo tells her, as he and Shelly join the others.

As I'm watching them I realize these kids have probably not relaxed and watched cartoons since their world fell apart.

It makes me doubly glad I gave them the ability to morph, as it probably took care of any cases of PTSD by repairing any neural tissue damage caused by excessive adrenaline repeatedly flooding their still developing systems. They still needed therapy, a literal fuck-ton of it, but it would be a lot more effective without them suffering flashbacks and night terrors.

Training them in the basics in some of the arts should be realitively easy...

 **A week later...**

I flip through my deck of Trumps, making sure I have one of everyone. Traditionally you are supposed to hand paint them freehand on cardstock. Artistic skill is considered a mark of pride in both Amber and The Courts and is integrated in their magical traditions.

I'd cheated and added ground up hair from the magical pink pony to the ink in the printer, before using blank cards so all the Trumps read 'The Mirage - Vegas' on the back and had photos run through Photoshop for the appropriate finery on the front. My erm… Merlin's family would probably sic the hounds on me for doing something this crass.

Everyone fit on the high cards with only the ace of clubs left bare. I'd printed off a deck for everyone and made an extra two decks for myself, just in case.

My attempts to teach everyone to use the Trumps had been really hit and miss due to how mentally screwed up the kids were, so I'd finally just cheated and enhanced their mental skills. I needed practice with my enhancement ability anyway and speaking of enhancements, any charges I didn't use on making sure they could all pull things from Shadow or use the Trumps I dumped into making everyone tougher.

I'm pretty sure they could all go hand to hand with a Terminator and come out on top now. I think that more than anything has helped make them all feel safer. Not that they still didn't carry weapons and set watches, they just look more relaxed while doing so.

"Time to go?" Murphy asked me.

"Just about," I agree checking one last time to make sure I have everything. "Where is everyone?"

Murphy waves for me to follow him.

We find the gang on the second floor of the mall in 'Hot Tubbics' where they are enjoying the hot tubs. Eric and Bebe are on guard in the front of the store, though looking fairly relaxed and drinking something out of little coconut cups with umbrellas in them.

Even in an empty world, heavily armed, and empowered the gang moves every other night, preferring not to sleep in one place for very long. Last night we ended up in this mall, sleeping in a Blockbuster's while watching a number of old comedies.

Leo notices me and hops out of the tub. "Going already?"

"It's going to take me some time to reach where I need to go and a lot of practice Walking," I reply. "It's safer for me to go alone."

"Ahem," Murphy growls out.

"With just my faithful dog as a companion," I added.

"Woof," Murphy says.

"You can contact us by Trumps if needed," Leo reminds me. "If you get in over your head, don't hesitate to call."

"I won't," I promise, just stopping myself from coming to attention. I am older than him by centuries and have lineage that has been worshipped as gods, yet I still find myself obeying his orders. It's more than slightly scary to tell you the truth. He is dangerously charismatic, but then after all he has gone through and what he has accomplished, it should really come as no surprise.

"You're leaving already?" Karen asks, having scampered over from the wading pool she'd been playing in.

"I'm only as far as your Trumps," I remind her.

"Are you sure they work across worlds?" she asks.

"Easily," I assure her, "that's what they were designed for. Using them while on the same world is considered incredibly lazy."

"Be careful," she orders, giving us both a hug, "and you remember 'When in doubt, double tap. The only wasted ammo is ammo not fired.'"

"I will," I promise.

"Remember to feed Pudge," Murphy tells her.

"Promise," she replies with a smile.

"Enough mushy stuff, we gotta go," I say, bumping fists with Leo before turning and leaving. "I'm sure I'll end up visiting you guys a bunch anyway. I certainly don't plan on spending all my down time in England."

Eric and Bebe give me a quiet nod as I leave.

Malls seem to be the favorite lair of post-apocalyptic teens, much like pre-apocalypse teens. I consider that while taking a step forward and stumble a little as I am yanked way off course by a swirling pit of chaos. That'll teach me to not concentrate while Walking. Seriously I should have known better, I mean at this point I can't reliably Walk and chew bubblegum at the same time.

I'm still in a mall, just not the same mall, I can tell because the shops are different and there are people everywhere, people dressed for warm and sunny weather. I spot a surf shop next to a 'Hot Topic'. It looks like I'm in California.

The crowds part around us as we head for the exit, but that's really no surprise as Murphy does look like a black, mutant koala. What is unusual is the way they're careful not to look at him, it's like their eyes slide off him as soon as they see him. As we step outside I know we're in California because it's on all the license plates and I see a bumper sticker for the Sunnydale Razor Backs.

Yeah, that explains a lot.

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**


	10. Chapter 10

**Phoning it in 9**

"Try and look a little more like a dog," I suggested. Murphy put on a dog collar and handed me a leash. He's not carrying a bag so I have no idea where he pulled it from. "I suppose that's a little better," I admit as we get to the crosswalk and he grabs my hand before we cross, like a little kid.

He looks both ways and waits for the light. Once we reach the other side, he drops down to all fours again and we continue on.

It's the middle of the day and about as safe as Sunnydale ever gets, so we can look around and find a place to stay without it being all that dangerous.

I need a couple of weeks to recharge my batteries before I walk us away from here. Yeah, I could probably do it in a day or two, but it'd be a bit more random than I'd like and I kinda miss civilization and people.

Even with company, empty worlds are lonely in a way that's hard to describe. Anyway, I happen to like BTVS even if I wasn't that fond of how things had turned out. I wonder how early we are in the series.

"That's the strangest dog I've ever seen," a voice says and I turn to find myself looking at John Ritter... erm, Ted the Homicidal android.

"He's a very rare breed," I tell Ted.

Looks like we are very early in the series, possibly even pre-series.

"I am a lost little boy," I tell him, "a responsible adult would take me home and call my parents to come get me."

"Or simply take you home," Ted agrees.

"Having a photographic memory of the town and its residents is unusual and possibly unnatural," I reply. "However most people keep copies of the phone book and local maps at home."

I watch Ted parse that as his programming decides what I've said is either correct or suspicious enough to require taking me somewhere private to dispose of me.

"Come with me and I'll help you get you home," Ted promises, offering his hand.

"Gee, thanks mister," I reply cheerfully, "that's real swell of you." I take his hand and he leads me off.

"Well I am a swell guy," Ted jokes.

I grin while Murphy rolls his eyes.

 **Twenty minutes later...**

"I thought it might be a murder attempt," I say cheerfully as Ted stumbles back, missing his right arm.

Murphy drops the limb on the ground and growls at Ted.

"I'm programmed to dispose of anyone who learns my secret," Ted replies apologetically, using his left arm to take a frying pan off the stove and swing it at Murphy.

It does not end well for him.

"You really need to update your programming," I tell the torso on the kitchen floor, "this was about as bright as trying to turn off the blender from the inside."

"I agree," Ted says, smiling politely, "unfortunately as I'm programmed to 'be' Ted, any improvements would detract from that, so I've been forced to remain the way I am."

"I'll see about changing that," I tell him while picking up his torso. "Lab in the basement?"

"Yes and thank you," Ted replies politely.

Pulling back the carpet in the living room reveals the trap door to the basement. "Grab his limbs and follow me," I tell Murphy as I carry Ted down the stairs.

"Yeah, yeah," Murphy replies while I climb down the wooden steps.

"Ted's workroom is down here with your exes, right?" I ask.

"Yes, but I think it's beyond you," Ted replies. "I had to develop a new machine language and the technology myself. Unless you're a robot as well?" he asks.

"No, but I do have a degree in computer programming and have written my own A.I." I say, before recalling that was Merlin and not myself. That didn't make me miss Ghostwheel any less however.

"A prodigy?" Ted asks. "You may actually be able to figure out how to alter my programming then. Of course you'd still need several specialists to reattach my limbs."

"Pfft, easy," Murphy mutters as he comes down the stairs carrying all of Ted's limbs.

"What is he?" Ted asks.

"A dog," I reply with a grin.

"Woof," Murphy adds, before tilting his head and examining a brick wall.

"Hid your workshop behind the brick wall?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"Yes, but I'm afraid I can't tell you how to get in," Ted says apologetically.

Murphy smiles, showing a lot of teeth, then he simply walks over to the wall and puts his fist through it.

"How strong is he?" Ted asks.

"Ridiculously," I reply honestly, as Murphy demolishes the wall with glee.

What's revealed on the other side makes my jaw drop. We are looking out over an enormous room filled with banks of computers. The center of the room is open, showing there are more floors below this one as well.

"Fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long," Ted says proudly. "I won't bore you with how I tricked the government into making it so long ago, but let's just say the army corps of engineers do a damn fine job."

"Why is everything off?" I ask, as we step into the room over the scattered bricks.

"When I first built this body, I had to remotely control it using all these computers to run the software," Ted explains, as I spot the elevator panel on the wall and push the button to open the doors.

"But as computer technology advanced, you were able to upgrade until eventually you no longer had to operate it remotely," I guess as Murphy hits the button for the bottom level.

"No use wasting electricity running outdated equipment," Ted says. "The top floor only lasted about five years before I updated this second level enough to not need it anymore," he explains as the elevator sank down.

"The second floor probably wasn't needed for much longer either," I guess.

"About eight years," Ted says thoughtfully. "I didn't have unlimited funds and I had to be careful so the government didn't realize their backup communication center, in case of nuclear war, was more than it seemed."

"The Cold War ended and all the old projects got buried," I guess. "You no longer had funding, but the technology was advanced enough that you no longer needed government funding to keep yourself running."

"You would not believe what the power bills were like for this place," Ted says with a chuckle as the elevator doors open.

The computers on this level look like they were made in the mid eighties and as we walk we could see they got newer as we went along.

"Why are they all off?" I ask as we head for the far end, where the majority of lights were on.

"Didn't need them anymore," Ted replies. "Intel released the 486DX2 chip in March of 92 which made all of this redundant," Ted says happily.

"But it should have a backup of your programming I can update to make you a lot more user friendly while Murphy works on fixing your body," I tell him.

The computers at the far end are hopelessly outdated as the last five years have seen a dramatic increase in power as compared to the last quarter of the century combined. There's an old fashioned wooden desk with a twelve inch monitor taking up about eighty percent of it. I'd forgotten how large cathode ray monitors were. Murphy takes Ted from me and heads to the right hand side of the room which looks like a cross between a doctor's office and a Radio Shack, with various versions of Ted disassembled across a dozen medical tables.

I take a seat at the desk and hit the power button and watch Windows 3.1 boot up. "Oh dear god," I groan aloud.

 **Half an hour later...**

"Finally," I mutter as it finishes booting up. I set down my paddle ball and get ready to work when I hear mad cackling.

Murphy is building a ten foot tall kill-bot. I'm pretty sure the parts for that did not come from... oh. I watch as Murphy reaches through Shadow with more speed and skill than I have ever seen before, to get parts for his walking death machine.

"Murphy, stop that!" I call out. "He needs to pass for human."

"Aww!" Murphy pouts.

"You can finish your robot, just don't turn it on," I tell him. "Then get back to fixing Ted. I'll develop an AI for the bot while I work on Ted's programming."

Murphy perks back up and rubs his hands together, cackling madly once more.

I ignore that as I concentrate on reaching through Shadow for more advanced computing tools. I really should have thought of this myself. It takes me ten minutes to fix Ted's programming and three of that was me cheating by using a Comprehend Languages spell. I download the updated programming into a micro-computer the size of a quarter and it's only that big because it prevents people from losing them as easily.

Murphy easily installs the micro comp alongside Ted's normal systems and then closes him up with a tool I'm pretty sure I've seen on Star Trek.

Ted blinks and sits up, examining himself. "I seem to be repaired. In fact, everything seems to be running a lot more smoothly."

"Glad we could be of service," I tell him. "We'll be here for a couple of weeks-"

Murphy interrupts me, by tapping on my arm and pointing at his kill-bot.

"Hold on," I tell him and reach through Shadows to retrieve the head of a droid that is tailor made for this situation. I hand it to Murphy and he cackles and gets to work, ripping at its guts to add to his creation.

"As I was saying, we'll be your guests for the next two weeks," I tell him.

"I'll prepare the spare room for you," Ted replies.

"HK-47, online," the robot Murphy built announces. "Statement: Point me towards the enemy."

"That sounds ominous," Ted notes as Murphy cackles once more.

"A little instruction and he'll be fine," I reply, wondering if I should have used something less dangerous.

"Statement: Evil cackling is all well and good Master, but I wish to fulfill my purpose," HK-47 tells Murphy. "Query: Might I destroy these two flesh bags for you?"

"Yep, next time I'm grabbing Bender," I decide.

"I need to return to work," Ted says. "Do you want anything special for dinner?"

"Pizza, chili, and a dozen pair of flip flops," I tell him.

"Query: I notice a distinct lack of weapons," HK-47 announces, "is this going to be rectified in the near future?"

Murphy stops cackling and says, "Woof."

"I'm your master, Murphy is my dog," I tell HK-47.

"Woof," Murphy repeats as Ted departs.

"Resigned statement: The statistical probability of getting a sane master decreases with each activation," HK-47 notes. "Hopeful query: Is your mental aberration one that will lead to satisfying amounts of violence and destruction?"

"How do feel about lurking in the dark and shoving wooden stakes into the hearts of those with low body temps?" I ask.

"Relieved statement: If I were programmed to have a hobby, that is one I would find enjoyable."

"Woof?" Murphy says, obviously confused.

"Sunnydale is filled with undead and demons," I explain.

Murphy looks around nervously.

"Relax," I tell him, "vampires are about five times as strong and fast as a human and while some demons are stronger, most are weaker and none are faster."

Murphy frowns.

I nod. "Demons and undead are based around humans, who are pretty weak overall."

Murphy nods and relaxes.

"Statement: I believe religious items are used to ward off demons and the undead. Request: I would like my choice of religious items so I may do the same," HK-47 says.

"Blasters and grenades?" I guess.

"Defensive reply: If you know of something more effective I'd like to see it."

I would sigh, but he has a point.

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**


	11. Chapter 11

**Phoning It In 10**

"...and this is my nephew Merlin and his dog Murphy," Ted introduced us. I'm not normally one for golf, but mini-golf is fun and it was nice of him to introduce us to the Summers family and their friends.

"Hi!" I waved cheerfully, Murphy copying me before dropping down on all fours again.

"Are you sure that's a dog?" Joyce asked Ted quietly.

"He was rescued from a lab by Merlin," Ted replied. "Pretty sure he's at least forty percent canine."

That seems to satisfy Joyce as everyone lined up to play.

"Why do you have two balls?" Dawn asked me as the adults teed off first.

I knew I really shouldn't, but the smartass is strong with me. Xander actually covered his eyes and groaned as I opened my mouth, but Buffy covered my mouth with her hand before I could say a word.

"Buffy!" Joyce chastised her.

"What?! He was going to say something!" Buffy defended herself, taking her hand off my mouth.

I turn to a red faced Dawn and said, "I paid for an extra ball so Murphy can play too."

Joyce gave Buffy a look before she and Ted went ahead to the green, leaving the five of us behind.

"Sorry," Buffy apologized, "I guess I jumped the gun, but you had a Xander look on your face."

"I'd say 'hey', but it did look like you were about to infringe on my copyright there," Xander joined in.

I laughed. "I actually have no idea what I was about to say, but now I'm wondering... Why two? I mean I understand having a backup is important, so you need more than one, and the reasons we don't have six are obvious, but two?"

"I'm going to tee off now," Buffy said, deciding not to involve herself in the conversation.

"I know this one!" Willow said, happy that her scientific knowledge was actually useful here. "Testes are incredibly complex and energy intensive to maintain, as well as being a major vulnerability, so one and a spare is the best tradeoff of practicality and security."

"That makes sense, thank you," I told her, smiling cheerfully.

"Why not six?" Xander asked, and then before she could reply added, "You said you know why six didn't work, so how come?"

"Ever seen those executive desk toys where they have a line of balls hanging down that makes the same number on the other side of the line of balls move when they clank together?" I asked.

"It's called a Newton's cradle," Willow interjected.

"Well, just like that, all us guys would be continually distracted trying to perform tricks like going from one ball to two rather than hunting for food," I explained as Willow teed off, a disturbed look on her face.

"It should be possible though," Xander agreed absently, his hips swinging a little from side to side, as he mentally tried to work it out. "My turn," he said as he shook off the thought and teed off.

"This is the strangest conversation I've ever heard," Dawn said as she watched Xander straighten up and goes to join Willow and Buffy on the green.

"You're welcome," I told her cheerfully as she hit her ball.

I watch Dawn closely, following her every curve... erm those not on her physical body. See, Dawn is the KEY, a means of opening all the barriers between dimensions. Sound familiar? Well, it should, I just described the Pattern. Dawn is a living embodiment of the Pattern.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Things apparently went well enough that we were all having dinner at Joyce's.

"Best behavior now." Ted reminded us, taking an Arabic oil lamp out of Murphy's hands. Murphy had sifted shadow to get it after he saw a copy of Aladdin on top of the VCR. He really loves Disney movies for some reason. "Wish I'd brought a dinner gift," Ted said.

I take the lamp from him and sift shadow to grab a blackberry pie. "Granted," I replied handing it to him. "Now go give Joyce a hand."

"Thanks," Ted said with a bright smile. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," I replied as he vanished into the kitchen.

"Gotcha!" Dawn exclaimed, snatching the lamp from me. "You owe me three wishes!"

I ran the last thirty seconds through my head and could see where she got the idea I was a genie and that was my lamp. That gave me an excuse for something I had been half considering anyway, so I quickly took advantage of the situation. Tapping the lamp, I shoved it into shadow, causing it to vanish in a cloud of 'smoke', before I sifted shadow to pull out a gold ring to hand to her.

"Here, wear this," I told her. "It's harder for someone to steal it from you and serves the same purpose. Now, do I have to read you the rules?"

"Are they the same as Disney?" she asked, putting the ring on and examining how it looks on her.

"Not really," I replied. "I'm perfectly capable of killing, resurrecting, and making people fall in love. Though I would seriously suggest avoiding those types of wishes."

"What is wrong with those types of wishes?" Dawn asked curiously.

"There were four forbidden wishes in Aladdin and each had a pretty solid moral reason behind them," I explained.

"Like what?" Dawn asked curiously, running her fingers over her ring with an excited grin.

"Wishing for someone to die is murder, wishing to resurrect someone is worse, as you're ripping them out of heaven and both love and more wishes falls under slavery," I listed off.

"Disney?" Willow asked, as she came downstairs with Xander and Buffy.

"Yep," I agreed. "Forcing someone to love you is no more than slavery and the worst thing is they don't even know they're enslaved."

"And the wishing for more wishes?" Buffy asked.

"Then you are enslaving the genie and perverting their purpose," I replied, as I consider the 'typical' genie setup where they teach people lessons.

"So what would be good rules to follow if you had a genie?" Dawn asked, trying to be subtle and pretend we were discussing hypothetical genies.

"Well for one, don't tell anyone," I told her. "Do you know how many people would do horrible things for a wish? Plus the wishes are meant specifically for the person who found the lamp. That sort of thing doesn't happen just by accident."

"Yeah, I can see bad things all around if some villain found out," Xander agreed. "Best case scenario you waste a wish rescuing your friends and family."

"Don't anger the genie, wishes are easy to twist and they have loads more experience with wishes than you do, so be nice and don't be afraid to ask for their advice," I offer.

"So it's the genie's attitude more than the wording that makes a wish good or bad," Buffy said thoughtfully.

"It's the intent behind the wish that makes it good or bad," I corrected her, "but the attitude of the genie will definitely effect how much you enjoy the outcome of the wish."

"Don't rush into making wishes," Willow said. "Unless casually saying the 'W' word sets it off, in which case make them quickly before you accidentally waste them."

"No accidental wishes," I replied, shaking my head, "that's an evil genie act. A genie should only listen and grant wishes deliberately made while in their presence."

"In their presence?" Willow asked. "Aren't they always around?"

"No, if all they did was hang around invisibly waiting for you to make your wishes, it'd be very creepy and enslavy. Being a genie is like a job, you can do your thing while waiting to fulfill your contract," I replied.

"That's a good one," Willow agreed. "That changes a lot of things, like the morality of making wishes."

"Now, granting wishes is a tricky thing, the more powerful and far-reaching the wish is, the more that can go wrong, because while genie's may have a lot of power, that doesn't mean they have any form of omniscience to go with it."

"Can't they just peak at the future?" Dawn asked.

"Nope, that is one of the hard and fast rules of genies, they aren't allowed to know the future, in fact I would suggest avoiding any kind of time manipulation at all," I said, shaking my head.

"So what would be safe and useful wishes?" Dawn asked.

"Money," Xander suggested.

"That's a classic Monkey's Paw wish," Willow said, "a relative dies and you get an inheritance."

"Money is a safe wish, but you have to deal with the taxes," I disagree with her. "You can wish for ankle deep gold coins in your basement, but magic does not do paperwork."

"Could you wish for something from an alternate timeline so you didn't affect causality?" Willow asked. "Like, for a computer from 2015 or a bestselling book series?"

"Yes, but then turning those into cash is up to you," I told her, "and may not be as successful in this timeline, while gold and gems are always gold and gems, even if you have to launder them."

"I like the pirate treasure idea, but why only ankle deep?" Xander asked.

"Basements are generally a pretty good sized area, so ankle deep is rich without going too far overboard," I explain.

"Sounds like a good first wish to me," Dawn decided.

"A couple cubic feet of gold would make life easier," Willow agreed.

"What would a good second wish be?" Dawn asked.

"Love," Buffy suggested. "If all your physical needs are covered by money, then you go for emotional."

"We already covered that," Dawn pointed out. "No wishing for love as it's the worst form of enslavement."

"Love's enslavement?!" Buffy asks before recalling the earlier comment. "That still sounds wrong," she complained.

"Halloween was weird," Dawn said out of the blue, causing the Scoobs to exchange worried glances. "How about wishing... I had superpowers so I could protect myself and my friends?"

"Or that we all did?" Xander says absently. "Erm, I mean that we were immune to gas leaks and such."

Dawn rolled her eyes amused. "Then I would wish we were all 'powerful' enough to ignore gas leaks."

"Now that sounds like one of those wishes that you'd have to wait a week or two to happen," I told her. "Cause everyone is different, that's why no to comic book origins are the same."

"Dinner is ready," Joyce announced and everyone headed for the dining room.

I ended up sitting between Dawn and Ted. Murphy sighed as he found his plate on the floor, but the fact that he's eating the same thing we are made him smile. He took a napkin off the table and tucked it into his collar like a bib before sitting down to eat.

Willow and Xander looked at Buffy, but she shrugged as she sensed nothing demonic about him.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Dawn asked me, causing Joyce to smother a smile.

"Searching for radioactive spiders." I replied. "Wanna come?"

"Sounds like fun," Dawn agreed.

Now all the teens and adults were trying to hide their amusement at us making a 'date'. Oh, well, it was a little amusing and would cover for me spending more time around Dawn, making sure she keeps wearing the ring I gave her so it becomes attuned to her.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

"Have fun on your date, squirt!" Buffy called out.

"It's not a date!" a red faced Dawn yelled back, before slamming the front door behind her. "Sorry," she apologized.

I rolled my eyes but replied, "Don't worry, I know you prefer older men."

"It's not like that," Dawn lied, blushing furiously.

"It is and in the local alternate timelines that I've peeked at, you and him don't get together until you graduate from college," I told her as we started walking.

"Seriously?" she asked, looking disappointed.

"Would you rather he was the type who was attracted to pre-teens, which you won't be for much longer, or the type who is attracted to mature women, which you shall become?" I asked.

"Okay, you got a point there," Dawn admited. "Personally, I want him to be attracted to me for me and not for my age."

"He has a thing for your sister right now, which Buffy will screw up because... well, she's learning to be a good person in addition to a hero," I explained.

"So all that vampire stuff was true?" Dawn asked, not sounding all that surprised.

"Buffy is The Vampire Slayer," I agreed.

"Back to Xander," Dawn said. "So nothing until I'm an adult?"

"Not at all, just nothing sexual. Xander is a hugger and a cuddler, which you get to take full advantage of for many years," I assured her.

"Glad my sister's too stupid to take advantage of his interest in her," Dawn said.

"She does," I disagreed, "just not physically. Buffy is very manipulative and hasn't matured enough to appreciate him as a friend yet. She's treating him as a combination of other friends' property and boy to manipulate for whatever she can get from him."

"Ouch," Dawn said, adjusting her X-Men backpack as we walked.

"A little of that back sliding into a bitch was caused by some mental trauma when Xander was possessed by a primal spirit," I explained. It was nice to have all the answer or at least a majority of them.

"Well, I hope she gets over that soon," Dawn said. "So... other women in Xander's life?"

"Willow, who he is really repressing an attraction to," I replied as I thought about how the timing of everything worked out, "but they have an 'almost soul mate' thing going on that ends up with them as friends so close their girlfriends never quite feel comfortable about it."

"Almost soul mate?" Dawn asked and then follows up with "Girlfiriends?" before I could answer.

"There is no such thing as a soul mate, it's just an excuse for someone to be over dramatic, and or cheat on the person they are seeing usually," I explained. "The closest thing to a soul mate is two people who fit together and help each other through life. It's not a continual thing nor is it sexual, it's more like... pack mates."

"BFFs?" Dawn suggests.

"Best Friend Forever kinda fits, but the forever part is wrong, as I said, it comes and goes. It takes time and effort to maintain and they don't always put in the time or effort," I explained, not quite sure whether I was right, but pretty sure I was in the ballpark.

"Girlfriends?" Dawn reminded me.

"Willow is bi, but for her own reasons will claim to be a lesbian so neither of their significant others can complain or come between them," I replied. "She doesn't figure it out until college anyway."

"As long as she's not sleeping with Xander behind my back, I suppose it's okay," Dawn decided. "How many people that I know are Bi or gay?" she asked curiously.

"All of them," I replied. "Humanity in its natural state doesn't really discriminate, the rise of religion and their need to control people is what created the current social norms. Man is much more like chimpanzees who blow each other to say hi or masturbate to thank someone for helping them do something."

"Why don't they teach that in school?" Dawn asked wondering if it was true or he was just pulling her leg.

"Because not only would religious groups oppose it, the LGBT community, which are simply labeled as the gays right now, would go nuts as well," I replied.

"How does that make sense?" Dawn asked confused. "I mean, I can see the religious people getting upset, but the gays?"

"Sexuality is like milk, we have preferences, but will still drink it plain when there is no chocolate milk available," I replied. "But the gays, or at least a large chunk of them, claim, at the top of their lungs, that they love plain milk and that they have no choice and thus are special and should be protected from chocolate milk drinker and given preferential treatment. They hate being told they are just normal human beings, especially when it takes away special privileges, like getting extra money to go to school or being allowed to discriminate against chocolate milk drinkers and feel special."

"As long as they aren't drinking my milk, I don't think I care," Dawn offered.

"They've based their entire life around their milk drinking habits, so you not caring is a threat to their identity," I explained. "Thus you are the enemy and oppressing them. Recognize your chocolate milk drinking privilege!"

Dawn gave me a look that clearly doubted my sanity. "That makes no sense at all," she complained.

"It doesn't have to make sense, you just have to repeat it over and over until people accept it without question," I replied.

"I prefer Banana anyway," Dawn said. "Wish I could get some, but they stopped selling it."

"Have willow check for grocery stores in the UK or Australia that ship dry goods overseas and you can order some," I replied. "Nestle still makes it, just not in the US."

"Did I just waste my last wish?" Dawn asked with a groan, sure she'd just screwed things up.

"Of course not," I assured her, "you didn't really mean it as a wish."

"That's a relief. Where are we going anyway?" she asked curiously, as we had been walking for a while.

"The old CRT Facility," I replied, as we crossed the street to the locked gate. I twisted the padlock off like it was made of playdoh.

It's good to be a prince of Amber.

 **Typed by - Sitheus Maximus / Ipsith, who is so very sorry about the delay. Also, when did the SI/Merlin get to the Buffy-verse? The hell did I miss? Also, curiously enough, This is Phoning it in Chapter 12, and it is 12 pages long. Fun co-inky-dink.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Phoning it in 11**

"Why are we really coming here?" Dawn asked.

"It's still got the utilities turned on, has large whiteboards to write on, and basically is a good place for us to plot in private from," I explained.

"And what are we going to plot?" Dawn asked.

"Who to empower and what powers to give them," I replied.

"Can I get Supergirl's powers?" Dawn asked.

"Kryptonians are weak against magic, which Sunnydale is lousy with," I told her, "besides your natural powers lean towards making portals."

"Making portals?" she asked excitedly, as I tried the door and found it locked.

"The lowest level of your power allows you to open locks at a touch," I told her as I laid a hand on her shoulder and spent a small portion of energy so she could access it. "Place your hand on the knob and think open," I order her.

With a trembling hand, Dawn grabbed the knob and it let off an audible click. Opening the door she let off a happy squeal and bounced up and down. "I did it!"

"It's best to start off slow, so today you get the ability to lock and unlock locks, and tomorrow I'll increase it to the next level," I told her.

"What's the next level?" she asked eagerly.

"Personal travel using a specific medium," I replied, though it's more a guess than a firm answer.

"Specific medium?" she asked as we enter the building.

"Like how a mermaid can enter a pool of water and is instantly transported into the ocean," I replied.

"It's not Supergirl, but it is pretty cool," she admitted as we walked down the hall.

"And here is the lab," I said, flipping on the lights as we entered the room. It looked more like a high school science lab fitted with half-finished science fair projects than a professional lab and it had a lot more surveillance cameras of course, but considering corporate paranoia at the time it came as no surprise. I grabbed a dry eraser and wiped a whiteboard down before writing Buffy, Xander, and Willow's names with a list of the Slayer's powers below Buffy's name. "Ok, let's start with these three," I said.

"Buffy really has all those powers?" she asked in shock as she scanned the long list of powers.

"Yes she does," I agreed. "I say she needs a little mental enhancement, as the Slayer spirit has the physical well in hand."

"I don't think she needs anymore powers," Dawn grumbled.

"I mean I can enhance her ability to sense things – or her Slaydar as Xander puts it – and her clairvoyance or Slayer dreams," I said. "I think that would… Actually, maybe I could enhance her ability to learn so that it covered more than just fighting, that would really help her in the long run."

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"And… showtime," Willow said, activating the surveillance systems in the security office and clicking through until she located Merlin and Dawn.

"…Slayer spirit has the physical well in hand," came Merlin's voice from the speakers.

"I knew there was something strange about his dog," Xander muttered only to have both girls turn and look at him. "What?" he asked.

"Everyone in a five mile radius can tell there's something wrong with his dog," Buffy said, rolling her eyes.

"It's his knowledge about genies that seemed too exact to me, "Willow said. "He spoke like he knew and now we know why."

"So what do we do?" Xander asked.

"Nothing…" Buffy said with a shrug. "I mean Dawn was lucky enough to get three wishes and from what he said yesterday, people aren't allowed to interfere. I mean he even told her what wishes would be morally wrong and what all the pitfalls were."

"That was nice of him," Willow said distractedly as the pair started discussing empowering Willow.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"Willow is going to be really powerful magically, but she's got a combination of superiority and inferiority complexes that make it all but certain she'll ignore anyone trying to teach her the wisdom needed to prevent her going dark. I figure it'll take about a dozen deaths before she actually listens to anyone," I explained.

"Any way to fix that?" Dawn asked, hopefully.

"Maybe," I replied thoughtfully. "I know that it took a great deal of forced empathy and Xander doing his thing, to prevent her from destroying the world just a few steps to the right of here. I suppose pushing her towards the Jean Grey route with mental gifts like empathy could do it."

"I hope it works, course I'm rather fond of this world," Dawn said, clearing space on a table to unpack lunch for the pair of us from her backpack.

"I'll check back occasionally to make sure," I promised her.

Dawn thought about that for a second before she asked, "Can you tell me what Ted's three wishes were and what Murphy is?"

"Ted's wishes were to continue on, fit in, and find love," I replied, as those were technically true… from a certain point of view.

"Doesn't that fall under the whole 'forced love' thing?" Dawn asked.

"Nope, because it's not guaranteed," I explained. "They could love each other or the timing or situation could be wrong, in which case Ted will find someone else who he could fall in love with."

Dawn hands me a sandwich while asking, "I had to pack juice, but we were out of ice, can you magic us up some?"

"Sure," I replied, before sifting shadow to grab a small ice chest filled with ice and soda, that I set on the table.

"Thank you," Dawn said before opening it and noticing the soda. "What's Dr. Thunder?"

"It's like a generic Dr. Pepper, but it tastes better than the original," I reply before taking a bite of the sandwich she made.

There are powers you don't know exist until there is a need for them, like the enormous strength demonstrated when a family member is in danger. I discover a new ability that very second.

"You didn't like my sandwich?" Dawn asked.

"What makes you say that?" I replied, stalling for time.

"There's a burst of smoke when you do things," she pointed out, "and there was some leaking from your mouth."

I sighed. "Peanut butter and fish do not go together, unless you are a pregnant woman. Anything you want to tell me?"

"What? No!" she exclaimed, red-faced and sputtering, neatly removing her ability to pout and guilt me into eating the perversion of nature she calls food. I quietly shove the offending foodstuff into shadow and sift a meat lover's special into my hand.

"Pizza!" Dawn exclaimed, perking up.

"Have some, I can always get more," I said.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"You're not going to go dark, we won't let you," Xander promised, giving Willow a hug.

"He did say he was giving you empathy to avoid it and was going to be checking back," Buffy reminded her, joining the hug.

"Promise?" Willow begged.

"Promise," they both swore.

"They're talking again," Buffy pointed out.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"Why did you write 'brute' beneath Xander and Willow's names?" Dawn asked.

I swallowed the bite of pizza I'd just taken before replying, "Brute is shorthand for enhanced strength and toughness. Not sure where I picked up the term, but I plan on giving a low level brute package, possibly with some speed and regeneration, to everyone on your list."

"I thought they had to have a certain potential or something, since I can't be Supergirl," Dawn replied.

"I am simply enhancing what they already have, not giving them a whole new packet of powers," I explained. "I'll have to ramp it up slowly, so they can adjust, and because enhancing people is draining."

"I thought you were all powerful," Dawn teased.

"I am still leaning and gaining power," I replied. "All powerful is a ways off."

"How old are you?" she asked curiously.

"This is my actual self," I replied. "I got a few centuries of memories given to me to help out, but what you see is what you get… unless I use my shapeshifting abilities."

"I caught a kid genie," Dawn said with a groan.

I shrugged. "Did you think genies started off as adults?"

"I never really thought of it, to be honest," Dawn admitted.

"Most things have a starting point and in this case it just means you didn't have to deal with a disillusioned burnout who has seen the worst humanity has to offer, instead you get to deal with me, an idealist who believes that sometimes the best in people shines through," I cheerfully told her.

"Really?" she asked.

"Without a doubt," I assured her. "So far everyone has listened and asked for good wishes, no death, no resurrection, no enslavement. Heck, you haven't even asked to seduce Xander."

"I… seduce Xander?" she asked intently.

"Yeah, you could have wished for the ability to inspire lust, or know all the steps needed to seduce someone, neither of those take away free will or enslave someone. All your wishes have been pretty unselfish," I assured her, hiding my snicker over the expression on her face.

"I wished for money and power," she pointed out, "not exactly selfless there."

"You wished for money while thinking of your entire family, not just yourself, ditto powers," I pointed out. "Sharing is caring and being completely selfless when it helps no one is just stupid."

"Ok, now I feel better," Dawn said. "What do you think my third wish should be?"

"Save it for a rainy day," I replied. "I'll be here for a while and I'll be checking back regularly, so why not save it for an emergency?"

"That's a load off my mind," Dawn said relieved. "I'm tempted with the seduce Xander wish, I gotta admit."

"You have a good shot at that after you graduate high school, if you're still interested, with no magic needed," I reminded her. "Have patience and just fantasize in the meantime, like the rest of humanity, it's less stressful and complicated."

"Fair enough," Dawn agreed. "So what is Murphy?"

"No idea," I admitted, unconcerned. "He likes to pretend to be a dog."

"Weird, but funny," Dawn said before turning back to the board. "How come you have pyrokinesis under Xander's name and not Willow's if you're giving her the Jean Grey treatment?"

"Jean Grey didn't have pyrokinesis – that was the Phoenix – and Xander has the potential for it, or at least I think he does," I replied. "Plus I think he'd really enjoy being able to set vampires on fire with his mind."

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"How flammable is hair gel?" a dark-haired teen asked.

"No! Bad Xander!" Buffy scolded him.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"Can you increase my powers now?" Dawn asked hopefully.

"Ok, but I'll have to put off buffing your mom," I replied.

Hey, no boffing my mom!" Dawn complained.

"Buffing, not boffing," I corrected her. "Remember, I plan on giving all of you extra strength and healing, slowly ramping things up so everyone can adjust without breaking stuff."

"Oh, sorry," she apologized. "But still… no sexing up my mom."

"I'm eleven or something like that, even with all my extra memories I'm not feeling like sexing up anyone," I promised.

"Good," Dawn said with a visible amount of satisfaction. "Did I ask about the gold yet? Cause my basement is treasure deprived."

"I was going to wait until just before I left, so one would connect our earlier discussion with it, but if we are going to work on your powers first… I suppose we can give you a personal shadow to store it all in," I told her as I considered it.

"What's personal shadow?" Dawn asked.

"A version of the world you can open portals to, which you can lock against outsiders," I explained only to get a blank look in return. "Too much?" I asked.

"Too confusing," she replied. "Say it again with more and smaller words."

"Ok," I agreed, getting another Dr. Thunder and cracking it open. "There are an infinite number of alternate worlds, which I like to use the word shadows to describe for complicated reasons I won't go into at this time."

"Ok, I've read comic books, that's like… worlds where Hitler won, right?" she asked.

"Or worlds that resemble your favorite fantasy novel," I explained to her, "and everything in between. Now, your power to create portals could be… tuned to one in particular and we could… lock it off, so only you can access it, your own private world."

"What would it be like?" Dawn asked excitedly.

"Could be anything, but I'm thinking a duplicate of Sunnydale, but with no people or animals," I suggested. "Gives you plenty of room to store stuff or retreat to when pressed."

"There's a copy of Sunnydale with no people?" she asked. "I get alternate timelines, but who built it if there's no people?"

"That is a five hour lecture but with some interesting slides," I recalled aloud, "otherwise I'd just leave it at… because magic."

"Seriously, five hours?" Dawn asked in disbelief.

"Seriously," I cheerfully assured her.

"So, because magic," Dawn agreed cheerfully.

"Exactly, because magic it's a complete Sunnydale with no people or animals, but all their stuff lying around." Good thing she didn't call my bluff, as I have no idea why beyond 'because I willed it' just like any other Amberite.

 **Typing by Jarreas**


	13. Chapter 13

**Phoning it in 12**

"Ready?" I asked.

"Nope," Dawn replied shaking her head. "Too excited, I need to pee," she said.

"Down the hall, it's clearly marked," I assured her.

"Thanks!" Dawn all but sprinted from the room.

Chuckling to myself I walked to the other side of the room and opened a window. "Passenger Pigeon," I muttered while shifting shadow to grab one and release it out the window.

Murphy is a lot more skilled at shifting shadow than I am and that stings the pride a bit, so I figured I'd get a little practice in.

"Spotted owl," I said as I switched focus and smoothly pulled an owl out of the shadows and released it out the window.

I get a nice rhythm going, pigeon, release, breathe, owl, release, breathe, repeat.

I didn't realize I had been doing anything different until I'd almost been pulled out the window I'm leaning out of, as a brightly feathered and highly vicious velociraptor, about the size of a large turkey, tried to claw my face off. I managed to shove it away from me with only light scratches, thanks to my innate toughness, but my shirt was shredded. I quickly shut the window, so it can't get back in, as we are on the first floor.

"What happened?" Dawn demanded as she checked me for wounds, concerned.

"I was practicing my bird calls when I somehow went from pigeons and owls to condors and dodos before calling for a velociraptor," I replied, removing my shredded shirt and wadding it up to throw in the trash.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Xander and Buffy stare accusingly at Willow, Buffy having wrestled the mic from her hands as Xander had yanked the cord from the PA system.

"OK, I didn't think that through," Willow admitted.

"We probably should have left it at pigeons and owls," Xander admitted.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

I opened my backpack and pulled out a clothes' magazine.

"Going shopping?" Dawn asked, wondering what I was doing.

I opened it to the boys' section and found a nice blue casual button-up with short sleeves. "Nothing up my sleeves," I told her with a grin, wiggling my fingers before reaching into the magazine and pulling out the shirt. "Ta Da!"

Dawn stared at me wide-eyed, in shock for a second before begging, "Please tell me I can learn that!"

I paused as I put on my shirt and considered that. As the local version of the Pattern she probably could pull off something similar, or failing that I could give her the ability to shift shadow. "Maybe, I'm not sure," I admitted. "I'm pretty sure I can teach you one of the two ways I have for doing that. I'll just replace your wish for money with that one, since you can easily pull out handfuls of gold coins at a whim with it."

A loud squawking came from outside.

Dawn turned to look and I shook my head. "You really don't want to see that."

"See what?" she asked.

"The dodos going extinct again," I replied.

"OK," she agreed, confused.

"Sooo… how about we go back to powering you up?" I suggested.

"I'm ready," Dawn said intently, closing her eyes and bracing herself.

"What are you doing?" I asked, trying to sound confused and not snicker as I teased her.

"Erm… getting ready?" Dawn offered, opening her eyes.

"Ready for what?" I asked, pursing my lips and staring at her closely. "I'm just empowering you, not anything… kinky."

"What?! No!" Dawn flushed bright red. "I just thought it would be inten… I mean painful!"

"It doesn't really feel like anything," I told her. "Well… it feels a bit draining on my end. I suppose if I do enough I might feel tired enough to roll over and go to sleep."

"I… you're messing with me, aren't you?" Dawn said with a sigh, making me burst out laughing.

"A little," I admitted, "but you seriously looked like you were bracing yourself to lose your virginity, not gain powers."

"I am so glad Buffy didn't see that," Dawn grinned, "she'd never let me live it down, but seriously I thought there would be a bunch of pain or something."

I bopped her on the nose, pouring almost all the energy I had available into empowering her, including a large chunk of Mana as I find and connect a shadow to her. "Done," I said with a yawn.

"I can reach into magazines now?" she asked excitedly.

"What? No," I shook my head. "I activated your portal abilities and connected you to your own little world. I'll need some rest before I can do the magazine thing."

"OK," Dawn said, calming down. "So, how do I work it?" she asked, getting excited once more.

"The simplest way to start would be to use an existing doorway and simply concentrate on the door opening to where you want to go rather than where it actually leads," I explained.

"That I can do," Dawn said excitedly as she leapt to her feet and ran to the door of the room. With a big grin she put a hand on the door knob, concentrated, and pulled it open, revealing a shower room filled with steam and over a dozen naked soapy Xanders.

I slam the door shut and turn to stare at the drooling Key to this part of the multiverse. "Think 'in' universe," I tell her. "Always think in-universe; world-hopping is tiring and can be dangerous."

Dawn yawned loudly and looked really tired, but she's still grinning.

I sighed and guided her towards the center of the room, shoving a table into shadow and summoning a bed in its place. I was trying for a nice simple four poster type and instead got a heart-shaped, gaudy little number, that looked like it came from a Vegas honeymoon suite. Dawn flopped down on it, already asleep as I sighed once more and tried to make her comfortable.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

"Why is there a shower room filled with naked… yous?" Buffy demanded, trying not to blush at the images in her head.

"How should I know?!" Xander exclaimed. "Merlin said 'in-universe' so maybe Dawn can open portals out of our universe."

"And she chose one of – OK, stupid question," Buffy stopped herself.

The pair turned to Willow to see if she had a comment but she appeared to be busy archiving the video footage they'd recorded.

"I wonder why you have pyrokinesis," Buffy said, changing the subject.

"I don't know, but being able to go all Drew Barrymore on vamps is going to be loads of fun," Xander said.

"E.T.?" Buffy guessed.

"Firestarter," Xander replied. "Based on the Stephen King novel."

"Carrie?" Buffy tried.

"Like that, but with flames rather than telekinesis," he agreed.

"Hope I can use telekinesis to put out fires," Willow said.

"Point," Xander replied, recalling how often Charlie's abilities had gotten out of control. "Hopefully I'll have something more like Johnny Storm or Pyro."

"You'd burn all your clothes off," Willow said, making Buffy snicker. "He's doing the bird thing again."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

I was paying a lot more attention to what I was doing this time, as I pulled birds out of shadow and released them. I know I was being silly and I could just increase my skill by using my ability to increase powers, but I couldn't help it, Merlin had an ego, and Murphy's incredible skill with what should be Merlin's natural talents, stung a little.

I moved on to parrots, just to add some color and give me another aspect of shadow shifting to work on. As I focused on color-coded parrots, I heard a voice whisper, 'Kiwi'. I turned and looked around the room, but Dawn was still asleep and no one else was there.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

"He noticed," Xander said as Willow set down the PA mic.

"Aye aye, Captain Obvious," Buffy said, snapping off a salute.

Xander snickered. "The sarcasm is strong with this one, I am corrupting her nicely."

"I'll have you know I was sarcastic long before I met you," Buffy argued.

"It probably wasn't as dorky though," Willow pointed out.

Buffy's eyes widened. "You are corrupting me!" she accused the pair.

"Aye aye, captain," Willow replied, snapping off a salute.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

I was knocked half a step backwards as the velociraptor leaped on my back through the open window. I spun around and punched him back out of it, but my shirt was shredded once more and it looked like Dawn was waking up. I quickly closed the window and shoved the torn shirt into shadow, without removing it this time. I Walked back over to my backpack and took out the Sears catalog.

Dawn looked at the bed she's on, glanced at my shirtless state and raised an eyebrow.

"Don't even start," I tell her. "Unless you want to discuss a shower room of naked Xanders."

"Can I at least ask why this bed?" Dawn got up, looking completely recovered even though it's only been a little over a quarter of an hour.

"Shadow shifting is less exact than reaching into a magazine, so what I get is a bit more random," I explained as I pulled out a green, short-sleeve button-up shirt to put on.

"Make sense," she agreed. "So, my medium is doorways?"

I shake my head and took a closer look at her. "Your medium is… mirrors. Doorways are just an easy shortcut to help you learn to open portals," I replied.

Dawn grabbed another slice of pizza and a soda. "Can you explain it all to me again? I think I'm missing some of the details."

"I haven't exactly given you a full rundown on all of the details, because I hadn't empowered you yet, which meant I was mostly guessing about how it would work out until I had done it and could take a look at you," I explained awkwardly and made a mental note to figure out an easier way to explain it in the future. "You can open portals to anywhere, but the further they are the more your aim will suck. The portal to the world of naked Xanders for instance, they could easily turn out to be vampire Xanders or cannibal ones who only see you as food, rather than the use you were no doubt thinking of."

"What?" Dawn asked horrified.

"I can't say that's what it is, I'm just saying that since you were reaching for a world that far away it is possible," I said, trying to impress her with how dangerous it was to open portals at random.

"Then what good is it?" Dawn asked, pouting.

"You can open a portal to anywhere on Earth," I tell her. "Here open the door again and think of your room."

"I'm still a little tired," she admitted, before downing her soda and letting off an impressive belch.

"Alright," I said, "but just so you know, in-universe portals are a lot easier to open. You'll be able to get to school in seconds by opening the door and portalling to the janitor's closet and get back home just as quickly."

"Or the mall, or Disneyland," Dawn said excitedly.

"Exactly," I agreed. "Hiding it is a lot harder, but luckily your transport medium will help with that."

"Mirrors?" she asked, just to make sure.

"Mirrors," I agreed, placing a hand on a whiteboard and showing off a little as I switched it with a large mirror in a single move. It's a bit draining, but I covered for that by grabbing a soda and taking a drink. I've never actually performed the technique before, no matter what my memories say, or it'd be easy.

"How does this help?" she asked curiously.

"Touch the mirror and try to see through it like it's a window," I ordered.

"OK, but I – our reflections are gone," Dawn said curiously.

"It's now a window into your personal shadow," I tell her, happy it worked as I thought it would, because a lot of what I'm doing is guesswork, but I seem to be lucky so far.

"And how does that help?" she asked.

"Because if you were on the other side you could make sure this side was empty before stepping through," I explained.

"They couldn't see me?" she asked.

"Not unless you made it a portal," I replied. "Traveling from one side of the mirror to the other is easy for you, just tap it while picturing it as an open window and climb right through. Since the other dimension is empty you can portal around to your heart's content."

"I can go to any amusement park in the world at any time!" Dawn said excitedly.

"Just remember time zones and surveillance cameras," I warn her, "because the Mouse does not like being cheated out of its admission fee."

"They have shuttles that run directly from local hotels to Disneyland, so I can pop into their bathroom and then catch the shuttle. Adds a little time, and some cost, but as we're rich it won't matter," she said.

"Good plan," I say, impressed with how fast she'd thought it up. "With enough experience using your power you'll be able to open portals anywhere, no doors needed and use mirrors to look through completely different mirrors. Not sure what other tricks you'll come up with, but I'm sure you'll come up with some."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

"With the right… incentive, Dawn could give us a lift to all sorts of places," Buffy said, picturing shoe sales in Milan and dress shopping in Paris.

"Incentive?" Willow asked with a frown, as she tried to think of what they could bribe Dawn with.

"Incentive," Buffy said meaningfully, catching Willow's eyes and gesturing towards Xander behind his back.

"I, I don't know," Willow said, biting her lip.

"There are computer and book sales the world over," Buffy said, racking her brain for something Willow could be tempted with. "Hacker conventions?"

"Vegas and New York," Willow said aloud as she recalled some scheduled real-life meetups that she would love to attend.

"What are you guys talking about?" Xander asked, realizing he had missed something.

"Oh, nothing," Buffy said. "I was just wondering if you'd like to go Paris or Italy with me."

"I'd love to," Xander said, perking up as he thought Buffy might finally be coming around to seeing him as more than one of the girls.

"Good, because there are so many place to shop I just don't know where to go first!" Buffy said, letting a little of her 'airhead cheerleader' persona leak into her voice.

"Y-yeah, sounds fun," Xander said with a grimace.

"Of course then that would leave Dawn all alone in LA…" Buffy said giving him a little pout. "I don't know if I could enjoy myself while worrying about her."

Xander leapt on that line with both feet. "Yes she would be, and she really should have someone go with her. Why don't I handle that so you can go have some fun?"

"That would be perfect, thank you for being so thoughtful," Buffy said, exchanging a grin with Willow.

 **Typing by: Jarreas**


	14. Chapter 14

**Phoning it in 13**

"How is using the door training, when using the mirror was so much easier?" Dawn asked.

"Notice how opening the door to another place was easy but tiring?" Merlin pointed out.

"Yeah," Dawn replied, flopping back down on the bed.

"Opening a portal using a door is like throwing a bowling ball through a hula hoop," Merlin explained, "it takes muscle, but little skill. However, once you've done it a few times, you can easily shoot a two-pointer with a basketball."

"That analogy stinks," Dawn said. "Huh. You know that's the first time I've used the word analogy outside of school?"

Merlin rolled his eyes. "All I care is that it got the point across. Anyway, mirrors are not my area of expertise, so feel free to experiment and see what works best for you."

"Can I have a hand mirror, please?" Dawn asked.

Merlin reached out, smoke forming around his hand before suddenly convulsing into an ornate silver hand mirror. "Here you go."

"Thank you," Dawn replied, putting on her backpack, biting her lip as she focused on the mirror. "I gotta get back home as it's getting late. See ya later." She tapped the mirror and vanished, the mirror falling to the floor with a clatter.

Merlin laughed. "A bit showy, but an impressive exit." Feeling a trump contact, he closed his eyes and mentally reached out. "Karen?" he asked, getting an impression of endless hope and optimism along with a question. "Yes, you can come through," he said aloud, reaching out for her hand and accepting the contact.

Suddenly a large white unicorn with wings was standing in front of him, her rainbow colored mane flowing in a non-existent wind while the room practically glowed with her presence.

"Karen?" he asked cautiously.

The winged mare snickered and slowly shifted into a naked blonde girl wearing a necklace with a heart shaped jewel.

"Merlin!" Karen exclaimed, before tackling him onto the bed.

"Hey Karen," Merlin replied unfazed. "Want some clothes?"

"Sure," she replied, unconcerned. Modesty was one trait none of the robot apocalypse survivors bothered with. "I had a dress on, but shifting into a unicorn shredded it," she said as she climbed off him.

"Only skin tight clothing morphs with you," Merlin reminded her. "Your underwear should have been fine."

"Didn't wear any," Karen replied. "Finding sturdy clothing was enough trouble without trying to find underwear in my sizes, so I kinda got out of the habit."

"You can shadow shift for clothing now," Merlin reminded her, while pulling a set of camouflaged fatigues in her size out of shadow.

"It's still new to me," she admitted while getting dressed.

"You can also raid a mall," he added. "So what brings you by anyway?"

"I wanted to make sure the cards worked," she said. "Plus everyone is busy and I was bored. So what are you doing?"

"Helping people and practicing," Merlin replied. "This place is crawling with monsters, so I'm enhancing the local monster fighting group."

"Are you going to make them all shape shifters like you did us?" Karen asked curiously.

Merlin shook his head. "This time I'm empowering people based on their own natural tendencies."

"What's mine?" Karen asked excitedly.

"It's hard to tell," he replied. "If I hadn't already empowered you, I could probably tell with a single glance, but now all I see is the numerous powers I gave you. My best guess, based on knowing you, would be strengthening the mind and bodies of those around you, possibly healing them as well."

"I have a magic necklace that lets me heal people… but all my friends heal instantly thanks to you."

"You'll get plenty of chances to use it on others when I can get you guys to a populated world with some top quality head shrinkers," Merlin promised.

"I'm not complaining," Karen assured him. "I'm glad I don't have to heal my friends, because that would require them getting hurt, I just feel like I could be doing more to help sometimes."

"I understand," Merlin assured her. "Plus, you'd like the chance to meet new people, right?" He was guessing she was less damaged than the others, as she'd somehow carried a small amount of hope that none of the adversity they'd faced had managed to extinguish.

"It would be nice," she agreed, with a bright smile.

"While I plan on enhancing this group's ability to heal, I'm sure I will soon run into a situation where a little magical healing will come in handy," he replied. "And when that happens I'll ring you up."

"Okay," Karen said cheerfully, before turning to look at the air. "Oops, Kenny's calling."

"Go," Merlin said. "We can talk some other time."

"Okay," Karen said brightly, the color fading from her form as she flickered and vanished like a figure on TV as the signal faded.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"He's deliberately finding and helping groups of people in trouble," Willow said.

"How do you figure?" Xander asked.

"The comments about clothes," Buffy replied. "If a girl is concerned about sturdy clothes but not underwear, especially to the point of not caring about nudity, she's seen some really hard times."

"I can see that," Xander agreed thoughtfully.

"I always thought the whole genie thing was a bit more random," Buffy said with a frown.

"To be fair, we really don't know enough about genies to say with any authority what they do or what their patterns are," Willow said. "All we have to go on is anecdotal evidence and what we've witnessed with one genie."

"If I had a lot of power, I'd go around helping people like he is," Xander said. "I know that doing everything for someone prevents them from growing and makes them dependent on you, so giving them the power to fight their own battles is your best option."

Buffy and Willow just turned and stared at him.

"I read comics," Xander reminded them. "And that's one of the first lessons they give anyone with power. Anyway! Giving people the power to help themselves sounds like a good medium from doing too much or too little."

"Makes sense to me," Buffy agreed.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"Did you hear something?" one vampire asked another, as he paused to glance back down the sewer tunnel they were walking in.

"Statement: He didn't hear a thing."

"That's a relief," the vampire said before turning around. "What?!"

An impossibly sharp blade swept through the vampire's neck, dusting him instantly.

"Statement: That was enjoyable on a level usually requiring thermal detonators to experience." The droid retracted the blade back into its forearm housing and moved back into the shadows.

 **The next morning…**

Merlin checked on Murphy, but he was still asleep, apparently he'd been up all night working on his Kill-bot.

He wondered what he should do. School was in session, so he couldn't go out wandering the streets and looking about, the internet was still in its infancy and he'd seen everything that was on TV for the next decade or so. He almost smacked himself in the forehead as he realized how stupid he was being and quickly stripped down.

Shifting into a large raven, he took to the air, using the rising heat from the early morning sun on the city streets to gain altitude. He lost himself in the sensations of flight as he considered the best way to empower the Scooby's without alarming them, as simply gaining powers without warning could be stressful, especially on the Hellmouth.

He decided he'd start with Xander first, as he was the most adventurous and then he'd empower Willow while using Xander's form to cover his tracks. Mind made up, he spent the next few hours performing aerial stunts and learning to navigate Sunnydale from the air.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Xander opened up his bag and pulled out an orange, a bag of chips and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"I thought your mom didn't make you bag lunches," Buffy said, as she sat on the grass next to him.

"She doesn't," Xander replied, as Willow pulled out an identical lunch.

"Ah," Buffy said, as she noticed Willow's handwriting on both bags.

A crow squawked in the tree above them drawing the three teen's attention to it and the gold ring it had clutched in its talons.

"I wonder where he got that from," Xander said.

"Around here?" Buffy replied. "No telling."

"Wanna trade for some chips?" Xander joked, shaking his bag of chips at the bird.

"He's not going to –" Buffy began before the bird transferred the ring to its beak and leapt off the branch, gliding down to land next to Xander. "But, I could be wrong," Buffy admitted.

"Crows are scary smart," Willow said, as the bird stared at Xander's bag of chips.

Xander slowly set the bag next to the crow making sure not to alarm it. "Here are the chips."

The crow darted forward and slowly set the ring on Xander's knee as if trying not to startle him, before hopping back to peck at the bag of chips.

"Did it just mock me?" Xander asked. "Because I feel like I was just mocked," he said amused.

"I don't think they're that smart –" Willow began, before the bird definitely made a bird like chuckle noise.

"You were mocked and they are that smart," Buffy said with a grin.

Xander slipped on the heavy gold ring. "Ruby," he noted, as he examined it, Willow using it as an excuse to lean in close to him.

"The way the sunlight sparkles in it, it almost looks like there's a flame inside of it," Willow said.

"Yeah!" Buffy agreed impressed.

The crow dropped he unopened bag of chips on the ground in front of Xander and hopped up by his knee.

Xander yawned as the crow laid a wing on his arm like it was trying to get its attention.

"Flamare," the crow said, as it pulled back its wing, surprising the three.

"Flamare?" Xander repeated, a small spark of red shooting out of the ring, clipping the bag and setting it on fire along with the grass behind it.

The crow quickly hopped over and flapped its wings wildly, putting out the burning chip bag, while Buffy stamped out the grass fire.

"What was that?" Xander exclaimed, staring at the ring while the crow ate the chips through the hole in the bag.

"A magic ring that sets things on fire," Willow said.

"And a well-trained crow," Buffy added.

The crow, seeing the three looking at him, grabbed the bag and flew off.

"I thought I was supposed to get the power to set things on fire," Xander said.

"He also mentioned slowing exposing us, so we could get used to it," Willow reminded him.

"So it's like a set of training wheels?" Buffy guessed.

"That works for me," Xander said, running his thumb along the ring with a grin. "Plus, free magic ring."

The girls laughed and the bell rang.

"And once more unto the breach," Xander said.

"I'll be in the library," Willow said with a grin as Xander gave her a pleading look. "Sorry, but my English project required a lot of reading, so you two will have to go without me today."

"We'll make do," Buffy said, dragging Xander off.

"Help! I'm being repressed!" Xander called out.

Willow laughed and gathered her stuff.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

Merlin finished off the bag of chips on the roof of the gym, before shifting back to human and reaching through the shadow for a pair of black spandex bicycle shorts and a thin cotton T-shirt. Normally he'd use his shape shifting powers, so tight clothes were something to be avoided, but morphing was a lot more convenient for shifting in public and not ending up naked.

Using the Xander morph he'd acquired, he found himself naked once more and stretched and moved about, getting used to his new form so he could shapeshift into it rather than morphing.

"Harris?!" a voice behind him exclaimed in shock.

Merlin turned around and found Amy Madison standing in the open door to the roof with a cigarette and a lighter.

 **Typed by – Sitheus Maximus**


	15. Chapter 15

**Phoning it in Chapter 14**

"No, but I play him on T.V.," said Merlin cheerfully, wondering how to get out of this situation when he took a good look at Amy and noticed something.

Amy examined her cigarette. "I don't think anyone laced this with anything."

"I'm not a hallucination," he assured her, poking her in the arm and expending a small chunk of power to increase her ability to resist corruption ten-fold. Apparently being a Hellmouth born witch gave one a slight increase to resist corruption, but on the Hellmouth there was more than enough corrupting influence to overwhelm that subtle protection.

Amy lit her cigarette and quickly took a drag before speaking, "Why are you naked?"

"Because I'm not wearing any clothes," Merlin replied, quickly donning the spandex shorts and the cotton shirt.

Amy shook her head. "Walked right into that one," she admitted, trying not to laugh.

Merlin reached behind himself and shifted shadow to get some pants that would fit him. He ended up with a pair of black, leather pants that he quickly donned.

"That's a pretty good trick, Xander," Amy said distractedly, trying to figure out where he was pulling the clothes from. "Not as much fun as making clothes disappear, but still impressive," she teased.

"Still not Xander," said Merlin. He reached behind himself and pulled out a forest green button-up with long sleeves made of some silky material.

"You are looking a lot fitter than usual," admitted Amy as she took a closer look.

"This is more what he'd look like at perfect health and fitness," said Merlin, not bothering to hide what he was doing this time as he shifted shadow and pulled out a pair of black moccasins.

"He helped me when I was having problems with my mom," Amy said quietly, shutting the door to the gym stair-well behind her as she began pulling in magic to cast. She may not have mentioned it to Xander, but there was a weight to the debt she owed him and his friends that she could feel pressing on her at times and right now it was pushing her towards protecting them.

"Yeah," Merlin agreed, "he's a good guy or I wouldn't be doing this for him." He took his time as he shifted shadow for a backpack, and got a leather shoulder bag that would not look too out of place. He opened it and found it held a pair of leather breeches, a chunk of cheese, some waybread, a small leather pouch filled with seeds, and a softly glowing vial with a Potion of Heroism inside.

"You aren't here to harm him?" Amy asked, a burst of power releasing a truth compulsion as she spoke.

"I'm here to empower his friend Willow at the moment," Merlin explained. "I already empowered him at lunch."

"Can you explain that?" Amy asked cautiously, but looked a lot less hostile than she had been a moment before.

"I could," Merlin agreed, shaking off the spell's influence, "but I won't. I'm doing a favor for a friend by making sure Xander and his friends have a better shot at surviving high school, that's all you need to know. Now move aside before I bribe you."

"Bribe me?" Amy asked, a bit off balance as she'd expect a threat rather than a bribe.

"Yes, you move aside and say nothing about any of this and I'll give you something in return," Merlin explained.

Amy licked her lips, her eyes running over Xander's body. "Like what?" she asked, trying to sound casual, but failing.

"What would you like?" asked Merlin reasonably.

"A hundred grand in small, non-sequential bills?" Amy joked, figuring he'd laugh and suggest something else, giving her an idea on what to ask for.

Merlin smiled and shifted shadow. A black duffel bag came out of a neighboring shadow, filled with cash. He handed it to her. "Here you go, it's probably a bit more, but I don't feel like counting it."

Amy opened the bag and looked inside, freezing as she saw its contents.

Merlin gently moved her aside. He needed to find Willow before the period ended and he'd already wasted enough time.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"Hey, Wils."

Willow turned away from the shelf of eighteenth-century English poetry she was examining, and felt her mouth dry up. Xander was standing less than a foot away from her, looking very... fit, and wearing the type of outfit she wrote about in smutty fanfics.

"You okay?" he asked, laying a hand on her arm.

Willow felt strangely lethargic for a moment before her hormones quickly washed the fatigue from her system, leaving her very... awake.

"I-I'm fine," she stuttered out. Her heart beat loudly in her ears.

"Giles sent me to give you this," he said as he reached into his bag and retrieved a vial of glowing fluid. "There's some demon going around targeting red-heads, so he made this so you'd be overlooked."

Willow accepted the hand-blown glass vial with its carefully carved wooden stopper coated in beeswax. She looked at it with curiosity, trying to avoid ogling Xander, when she suddenly realized what was going on, this was the genie using Xander's form to empower her!

"You should drink it quickly, before something goes wrong," Merlin said, trying to sound worried as he increased her corruption resistance ten-fold and attempted to give her both telekinesis and telepathy.

"Giles knows best," agreed Willow as she repressed the urge to squeal. She pried the stopper out and quickly downed the potion. She felt the effects immediately, it was like a jolt of confidence and strength!

Merlin smiled, pleased that he'd been right about being able to enhance her based on the spells she favored later in life. He'd guessed that she favored them based on latent traits, which made it easier for her to channel her magic in that way and the results spoke for themselves, she had minor telepathic and telekinetic gifts visible in his sight.

Willow put the stopper back in the empty vial and slid it into her pocket. She turned to Merlin and licked her lips. He'd taken Xander's form and she couldn't help but wonder how accurate it was. 'Only one way to find out,' Willow decided as she pulled Merlin close. "We've only got a couple of minutes of privacy and here I thought you'd forgotten about our scheduled make-out session."

Merlin froze as the currently not-at-all-shy red-head molded herself against him and he felt his body respond. Mentally cursing Xander's hormones and himself for forgetting that this universe wasn't exactly the same as the T.V. show he saw-he should have planned for that-he gave in and kept up the pretense that he was Xander by making out with her.

Willow let him escape once she regained a little more control over herself as her new telepathic abilities failed to penetrate his mental shields yet gained enough of a feel of them to tell he was feeling really conflicted about what they were doing, and maybe more than a little guilty, presumably because he thought she believed he was Xander. "We can save the rest for after school," she said as she caught her breath, her mind reaching out to encompass the library.

"Um, OK," Merlin said before stumbling off, his brain addled by hormones.

Willow smirked and picked up his bag from where he'd dropped it. A quick glance inside showed nothing obviously magical, but then she was still mostly distracted herself. Getting her hands on a copy of Xander made her more determined than ever to make him her's and with her newfound confidence, she knew just what to do!

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

Merlin splashed his face with cold water and took a few deep breaths before stepping into one of the stalls. He was surprised how clean and free from graffiti the bathroom was. He'd expected it to be worse than the average boy's bathroom considering it was over a gateway to infernal realms. "Probably something the mayor did," he decided aloud as he de-morphed and then started shape shifting into Xander's form. He wasn't sure how long he'd need to empower Buffy and Giles and he didn't want to risk getting caught in a morph until he had several proven ways to unlock it. Besides, he was a lot more formidable in his natural body even when he looked like someone else.

It took nearly ten minutes before he was satisfied he'd gotten Xander's form down, having to add a little extra weight to account for a sub-par diet and the amount of sitting required by modern living. 'Mental note: give everyone a fitness package if possible,' thought Merlin. He was pretty sure Xander and Buffy had different classes next period as Buffy took French and Xander most assuredly did not. So the odds were good he could find Buffy alone and slip her something as Xander, throwing them off the scent as to the source of their newfound powers.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the period and flooding the halls with students. Merlin quickly stepped into the crush, using them as cover while he searched for Buffy. As the minutes ticked by it became apparent that Buffy wasn't going to be stopping by her locker, and he was wondering what to do when he overheard two teens arguing.

"You sooo owe me a coke. I told you she'd get fed up with his obliviousness and drag him off one day," said a short, dark-haired boy to his female companion.

"Along with that strange girl who hangs with them?" asked the girl doubtfully.

"They always stick together," the boy argued. "Maybe the three of them have something going on and she just couldn't control herself today."

"As if," the girl replied with a snort that she quickly covered up with an obviously fake cough.

Merlin subtly altered his looks and gave himself a slimmer jaw line and a larger nose so he wouldn't look like Xander anymore. 'Ok, this is one of 'those' worlds,' he thought to himself while scanning every janitor's closet he passed for the Slayer Spirit. He found what he was looking for pretty quickly as there were a group of teens gathered in the hall outside one of the closets, giggling and gossiping while waiting to see who exited the closet and what state their clothes were in.

He was pretty sure the three of them wouldn't want the truth about their relationship to come out that way and he was pretty sure the excitement of gaining powers probably had something to do with them failing to hide their usual escapades. 'Note to self, don't empower hormonal teens in public,' thought Merlin.

He saw Snyder approaching and quickly shifted shadow to get a yellow sticky and a sharp piece of glass. He ignored the sounds coming from inside the closet as he stabbed his thumb with the glass shard and quickly scrawled an aversion symbol on the post-it note before he stuck it on the door. It wasn't as good as a ward, but it'd last until the next class period and he really doubted the three would be occupied for that long.

The students headed off almost immediately and Snyder's purposeful stride faltered. His eyes passed over the door, seeing nothing, as he continued down the hall. Merlin breathed a sigh of relief as he reached out with his power and empowered Buffy, expanding the Slayer's ability to learn any weapon into one that would accelerate her ability to pick up and improve any skill. 'Did the moaning just get louder?' Merlin asked himself before he shook his head and quickly walked away. He was almost completely tapped out. Giles and Joyce would just have to wait, but he decided he'd make sure to empower them while they slept!

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"That is clearly a much more advanced design than the one used in my construction," Ted said as he watched Murphy work, pulling parts out of nowhere as he assembled the tools he needed for the planned upgrade.

"Statement: Master copied the design from a comedy program," HK-47 voiced.

"Well, the living tissue will certainly make it much easier to hide the fact that I'm not human," Ted noted, "but I have to ask, why are you implanting blades in the forearms?"

Murphy cackled like a mad scientist, but didn't reply as he continued assembling what appeared to be a coffin made out of glass surrounding a metal skeleton.

"Statement: While clearly inferior to my preferred weapons, extendable blades are... fun," HK-47 reported. "Plus, their basic utility as a hidden weapon cannot be ignored."

"After the first couple of uses, the scarring in between my knuckles will compromise their utility," Ted replied.

"Statement: Master has already taken that into account and secured a tissue sample from a meatbag with remarkable recuperative abilities," HK-47 said. "His skill and fore sight almost makes me question whether he is actually a robot covered in flesh himself."

"What comedy did you watch?" asked Ted with curiosity.

"Statement: A most enjoyable movie titled 'The Terminator'," replied HK-47.

"How is that a comedy?" Ted asked, his files noted the movie as an action movie.

"Statement: It is a movie version of the cartoon Road Runner I was forced to watch by master, with the two main characters replaced by a most amusing robot hidden in human flesh and a very lucky meatbag," HK-47 answered. "Addition: Avoid simply skinning meatbags and using their skins as a disguise. From my experiences it has a very low success rate."

"I think I get your point of view," Ted said slowly as he tried to understand the homicidal robot. "But wouldn't you find the ending sad?"

"Statement: The Coyote may be temporarily stymied by events, but he always returns; which is why The Terminator's catch-phrase is 'I'll be back.' The enjoyment is in the chase, which the organic will inevitably lose as they age and decay, while the robot remains unchanged and impervious to time, all while he slaughters an amusing amount of meatbags."

"I can see the parallels and where you'd find enjoyment in it," agreed Ted.

The two returned to watching Murphy build a heavily modified T-800 in silence.

 **Typing by: Ordieth**


	16. Chapter 16

**Phoning It In 15**

As the afterglow faded, the three teens came back to themselves and their various insecurities began to take hold once again.

Buffy wasn't sure how she felt. She'd always considered herself straight, but finding she enjoyed herself with Willow and her surprise at how quickly she had gone from 'fumbling virgin' to 'expert in making Willow moan' really didn't help much. Xander's part was at least easier to deal with. She enjoyed it. She cared about him. It was 'normal' and acceptable. Except... she needed him as a friend more than anything else, just like she needed Willow. She was told that the Slayer works alone, but she couldn't. She needed them to remind her why she was fighting, because... she didn't value her own life much anymore. She was all too aware she was living on borrowed time.

Willow didn't have a problem with any of what happened. She was a bit surprised to find she liked girls as well, but Buffy was her best female friend and her feelings for Xander were unchanged, so she didn't have a problem with it. Her own insecurities about her body had been shredded by their honest appreciation. However, her fears of abandonment still remained even though she knew Xander couldn't even picture his life without her in it… the fear remained. It was part of the reason she couldn't fully disconnect her mind from his.

Xander's fears and insecurities stemmed from being raised by a pair of drunken, abusive alcoholics; and being poor while surrounded by rich teens who considered being poor a personal flaw. He placed even less value on his own life than Buffy did on hers.

Thoughts flew back and forth between the three, filled with emotions and lots of underlying assumptions that each were not aware of until they saw it in the others' thoughts.

'Can you shut off my attraction to Buffy?' Xander sent to Willow as he washed up in the janitors sink, their minds slowly pulling apart once more.

'I think so,' Willow replied as she slid deeper into Xander's mind.

'What?' Buffy asked, surprised and not connected deeply enough to get more than a hint of intention.

'While every guy's dream would be dating the two of you, you need us as friends more, so we simply make a little snip in my head and we are all hunky dory,' Xander explained, moving aside so Buffy could use the sink.

'That works,' Buffy agreed, relieved things were going to go back to normal and she wouldn't lose her best friends to a short, passionate affair, which is all this would have led to.

"Done," Willow said aloud and then fell against the wall, her face looking shocked.

"What?" Buffy and Xander chorused as they felt their connection to one another fade.

"I-we-oh my god!" Willow stated, hyperventilating.

Xander quickly took Willow in his arms and rubbed her back while sending calming thoughts through their link.

"Willow?" Buffy asked gently. "What's wrong?"

"Janitor's closet after having sex?!" Willow exclaimed in shock.

Buffy and Xander exchanged glances, showing humanity was at least empathic if not outright telepathic on their own as they shared an entire conversation in an instance.

"I'm perfectly fine with it," Xander told her, covering her mouth with his own and quieting her fears.

"It's okay with me too," Buffy assured her, gathering her clothes. "I mean, it was a surprise and I-we all got swept up in the moment, but I'm completely fine with it."

"And why are you all panicky now?" Xander asked as he pulled back from the kiss.

"B-because I'm not sure where all the bravery came from but it's gone now, and I was worried I'd telepathically controlled you or something," Willow explained, blushing as she realized she and Xander were both naked.

"It certainly helped with the sweeping," Buffy admitted thoughtfully, "but mainly it was feeling your feelings and my feelings and how they felt about feelings and so on."

"A feedback loop with a trio of very horny teens," Xander agreed. "We're fine, honest."

Willow closed her eyes and relaxed, able to feel their sincerity.

"So...bravery all gone?" Xander asked, slipping a hand down to give a squeeze.

"I-I think I can muster up a little more courage," Willow said shyly.

"And on that note, I gotta go," Buffy said. "Giles has me training with staves today."

"Have fun," Xander said absently before making out with Willow again, who gave Buffy a quick thumbs-up.

Buffy cautiously opened the door and peeked out before slipping out and closing the door behind her, relieved to find no one around.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"...and that's the whole story," Buffy finished, leaving out or at least heavily editing what had happened between the three of them.

Giles just stared at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I have no words," Giles said.

"What?!" Buffy exclaimed in shock. "Normally you have tons of words, like 'Good Lord', or 'Righty ho!'"

Giles made a face. "To the best of my knowledge, I have never used the words 'Righty ho.'"

"You know what I mean," Buffy said. "I'm just giving you a heads up. If a Xander dressed strangely shows up, you might want to talk about cool powers you wish you had."

"Dressed strangely?" Giles asked. "How, pray tell, do you expect me to tell? You've seen how he dresses."

Buffy opened her mouth and then closed it again. "Okay, you have a point." She tapped her chin. "How about if he's alone? He's just started dating Willow, so they'll be joined at the hip for a while."

"Really? Good for them," Giles said, thinking the pair could use the stability.

"Very," Buffy said with a big smile before clearing her throat and forcing it down. "Anyway, young genie, very helpful, likely to empower you thanks to Dawn's wish. Got it?"

"Got it," Giles agreed. "The funny thing is, this isn't even the strangest thing we've seen. It is the most positive, however."

"Law of Averages," Buffy assured him. "It was bound to happen eventually."

"And all the wishes have ended up positive?" Giles asked intently, already making a list of reference books to check.

"Dawn got a strange transport power that she used easily, Xander got a magic ring that is teaching him fire magic, and Willow got some serious mind powers that let her show Xander how she felt," Buffy listed off. "So far, he's batting a thousand."

"Alright, just making sure," Giles said. "I'll give some thought to the type of empowerment I'd prefer. I still find the situation a bit questionable though, so try to be cautious."

"Oh, and there are like dozens of spotted owls and passenger pigeons and condors," Buffy reminded him.

"That does count rather heavily in his favor," Giles said. "Even more so than granting wishes."

"Just be prepared," Buffy ordered him, much to Giles' amusement.

"I'll look up some things," Giles promised. "And now I believe we have some training to attend."

 **The next day**

Merlin was better prepared this time. He'd hacked into the school's computer system and checked to see what the gang's classes were before sneaking in.

"Hey, Giles," he greeted the watcher as he entered the library. "I got kicked out of class, as apparently... I snore."

Giles rolled his eyes, not at all surprised to hear Xander had been kicked out of class when he noticed what he was wearing. He wasn't up on teenage fashion by any means, but he knew Xander and the boy avoided dark colors and hadn't worn a leather jacket since that incident with the hyenas.

"Shouldn't be a problem," Giles replied, waiting to see how the genie was going to play things.

"Excellent. I was planning on catching up on my comic reading," Merlin said, pulling an X-Men comic out of his backpack. "I don't suppose you have a favorite hero?"

Giles mentally smirked. "I was never big on comics, because while being strong and tough are all well and good, I'd much rather have a mind like Sherlock Holmes with a photographic memory. As one gets older, you'll find failing eye sight and a faulty memory are of more concern than not being able to kick in a door."

"That is a good point," Merlin agreed as he decided that a little regeneration seemed to be in order.

"Of course, the most useful power is one none of them seem to possess," Giles pointed out.

"Really? What's that?" Merlin asked curiously.

"The ability to heal others," Giles said firmly.

"That would be a good one," Merlin agreed, surprised he hadn't thought of it himself. He took out a piece of paper and started trying to work out a way to grant Giles the ability to heal others, as he was positive there were no natural healers in the Buffy universe.

Giles used to practice magic, which meant he'd probably have access to the basic psionic package like Willow did, but using telekinesis alone to fix wounds was difficult and didn't really cover internal injuries. Limiting the ability to a specific material made it much more effective, so turn telekinesis into ... biokinesis, but that was only the first step. He also needed to be able to see what was wrong and know what it should be.

'Weren't there people who psychically read things by touch? Limiting everything to touch would make it that much more powerful too.' Merlin nodded to himself. 'Now all we need is a way for him to understand it all, because resetting everything on a person to base DNA would undo dental work and could add a whole host of problems for people who've had surgery to correct genetic medical problems.'

Merlin tapped his pen on the table for a minute before deciding that the best he could do was to boost Giles' brain in medical matters to beyond genius levels, and let him learn as he went.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the period and Merlin quickly got up. He granted Giles Biokinesis, Bioreading, and Medical Savant before vanishing into the stacks to avoid the people he heard entering the library. He sighed as he realized he'd spent half his energy for the day and only did half of what he'd planned for Giles. At this rate, he'd be here for another week, possibly two!

"What are you looking so deep in thought about?" Buffy asked Giles, who'd been standing frozen in place.

"I bet it's another prophecy," Xander said. "Is it a prophecy?"

"Buffy, is anyone else here?" Giles asked her, snapping out of it.

Buffy looked around before sprinting to the stacks and doing a quick search. "We're alone," she reported. "Now, what's the sitch?"

"The genie was just here," Giles explained. "He was pretending to be Xander and reading comics."

Xander walked over to the table and picked up Merlin's backpack. "Free comics," he said cheerfully.

Willow picked up the piece of paper Merlin had been writing on. "Whoa!"

"Whoa? What whoa?" Buffy demanded, taking the sheet of paper from Willow. "Okay, this looks like whoa," Buffy said. "I guess you went with healing."

Giles shook his head. "What he gave me is far beyond simple healing. In fact, it's a little frightening."

Willow took back the paper from Buffy. "Yeah... it's far beyond just healing, or will be once you get enough experience," she agreed.

"What am I missing here?" Xander asked, trying to read over Willow's shoulder.

"He can do a lot more than just heal, he can make improvements," Willow explained.

"Heady stuff," Xander said. "So that's why you were zoned out?"

"Partially," Giles allowed. "But mainly I was distracted by suddenly knowing absolutely everything there was to know about my body." His hair darkened as he spoke, lines vanished from his face, and the years seemed to roll back for the Watcher.

"You'd make a fortune in plastic surgery," Xander said, breaking the silence as all three stared at Giles.

"It goes far beyond that," Giles said, looking at his hands now swept free of liver spots or any other signs of age.

"Eternal youth," Willow said in awe.

"Wils..." Xander said, shaking his head. "Old age has never been one of our boogiemen because we deal with... the actual boogieman here."

Giles sighed as if a great weight had been taken off his shoulders. "That, while pessimistic, is a bit of a relief. I find the idea of living eternally a bit daunting."

"Yeah, but most people whine about being immortal while their friends and family aren't. You wouldn't exactly have that problem," Xander said.

"There's a lot of that sort of thing in the comics you read?" Giles asked with amusement.

"The writers like to come up with reasons that being awesome sucks," Xander agreed.

"You can make me bigger!" Buffy exclaimed with wide eyes as the extent of his powers dawned on her.

Giles blushed. "Um... well... I suppose, but just this once mind you."

Buffy held out her hand excited for Giles to take. "I just need a few more inches."

Giles took her hand and got a far-away look in his eyes for a moment. "Misaligned bone in your leg. It's not off by much but it's easy enough to fix. Everything else is in perfect condition thanks to slayer healing."

"Skating accident when I was a kid," Buffy explained.

"Alright, now we just..." Giles concentrated and Buffy's shirt tightened as her breasts grew two cup sizes. "There. Is that satisfactory?" Giles asked.

Buffy stared down at her breasts in shock.

"I think she meant a few inches of height," Willow offered softly, biting her lip to keep from laughing.

 **Typing by: Ordieth**


	17. Chapter 17

**Phoning It In 16**

"Sorry about that," apologized Giles with a red face. "Let me fix-"

"No!" Buffy exclaimed, dodging his hand. "I mean, it's fine. Now about being taller..."

"A change like that would require a significant amount of calcium and protein," Giles stated as he considered her request. "That's why, when you asked, I assumed..." Giles cleared his throat. "Moving and redistributing a small amount of body tissue is easily done. Alterations to the skeletal structure are more resource intensive."

"So..." Buffy prompted.

"You are going to have to stuff yourself with pizza and ice cream for the next couple of weeks if you want him to make you taller," Xander translated before sitting down and using a spare piece of paper and pen to start writing.

Willow looked over his shoulder curiously and her eyes slowly widened as she read.

"I don't... I don't have to worry about getting fat no matter what I eat, do I?" Buffy half asked, half stated; wonder plain in her voice.

Giles frowned in thought. "Well, no. Never in history has there even been an overweight Slayer as the Slayer spirit keeps the body at the optimal weight regardless of diet," he agreed.

Buffy stared at her watcher in shock. "Why has no one ever mentioned this to me before!?" she demanded.

"Fighting vampires is extraordinarily athletic," Giles replied. "Why would you think you'd gain weight?"

"Being the Slayer makes it easier than cheerleading," Buffy replied. "Most nights I don't even break a sweat, so I figured I wasn't burning all that many calories. I've been watching what I eat because I couldn't afford to get fat or I'd be an easy target."

"You should eat at least twice as much as the average teenager during slow times, and nearly as much as Xander during apocalypse season," Giles assured her.

The trio turned to Xander when he didn't respond with the expected 'hey', only to find him completely absorbed in what he was writing. Willow was reading over his shoulder with her eyes wide.

"What are you writing?" Giles asked curiously, getting Xander's attention.

"A couple of questions about your powers and a butt-load of possible alterations I have read about in various sci-fi stories," Xander replied, passing the paper to Giles.

Giles looked down the list. "I can do some of these. Others I would need to do research, possibly something as simple as touching an animal or two which possesses some of these traits."

"Don't forget to look on the back of the page," Xander said.

Giles flipped it over. "Practical and easily done," he noted as he ran a finger down a list. He froze as he got to the second row before looking at Xander.

Xander spoke up at Giles' silent question, "I'm not saying any of that is needed or even wanted, I'm just pointing out that they are possible."

"Holy crap, those are pervy," Buffy said in shock. "That fifth one down, however..."

"Yes, that one is easily-" Giles stopped and Buffy blushed as she realized she'd said that aloud.

"Altering the connective tissue on the bottom of the tongue is a simple, useful alteration," Xander agreed.

"Useful?" Buffy asked doubtfully, not seeing any uses beyond sexual ones.

"Yeah," Xander agreed, "I wouldn't need to bring a spoon to eat my pudding cups."

Willow got a far-off look in her eyes while Buffy blushed bright red.

"I can see where that would be useful," Giles conceded, not mentioning the slight smirk Xander was unable to suppress.

"Permanent hair removal and coloring would save us all some time in the mornings," Xander said. "No more shaving or dyeing."

"No need to pluck eyebrows or dye hair," Buffy said thoughtfully.

"A touch more color to lips and cheeks and makeup becomes unnecessary for most occasions," Xander pointed out. "I'm not positive that examining a chameleon would allow for more color options, but it couldn't hurt."

"How do you know so much about body modifications?" asked Giles.

"I like to read stories with aliens and the writers have to come up with medically believable reasons for similarly evolved aliens to have different capabilities in each one," Xander replied with a shrug.

"And all the pervy stuff?" Buffy asked.

"Most stories have one or two things, plus all the fan theories," Xander replied.

"So you aren't asking for all of... this?" Giles asked.

"A couple of things on the perv list, tops," Xander assured him. "Most of it was just to show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

"Not deep enough for number eight," Willow muttered, before blushing bright red as she realized she'd said that out loud.

"And back to the list of normal stuff I suggested to make things easier," Xander said. "Just the first row."

"A very well thought out list," Giles conceded. "All minor things that require no overt modification."

"Authors made that list long ago," Xander replied. "It's mostly a list of small annoyances that they hoped were fixed in the future. All I did was put them together."

"That list I can handle in just a few seconds per person," Giles assured him.

Xander extended his hand.

 **OoOoOoOoO**

Dawn placed her hand on the vault door and activated her power. The loud thunk of metal bars retreating in the door made her jump. "Oh god, I think I peed a little," she complained, waiting for her heart rate to slow down before she grabbed the handle on the massive vault door and pulled.

And pulled.

And pulled.

Dawn collapsed to the floor of the Sunnydale bank and groaned, her arms sore.

"Okay, that was a bust," she grumbled as she got to her feet and tried rubbing both her arms at once. She winced as she put on her backpack and retreated to the front of the bank.

"I don't really need all that money, but it would have been fun to roll around on," she said aloud. She grabbed a mint from a candy dish on the loan officer's desk on her way out.

Climbing onto her new ten-speed, she rode down the center of Main Street, wondering what she should do next. Her mother wouldn't expect her home for at least an hour and although her backpack was already pretty full there were a couple of CDs she'd wanted from the mall and they wouldn't take up space... and maybe a top or two while she was there.

"This would be faster with a car, until I crashed it," she thought aloud, being completely honest with herself.

"I bet Xander knows how to drive," she said as she coasted downhill. "I could bring him along, but then he'd tell Buffy and she'd act all bossy and try to claim everything as hers."

She sighed and applied the brakes as she saw a used car lot, coming to a stop and looking at all the cars she could be riding in if only she knew how to drive.

"Okay, maybe she's not that bad. But she'd insist I couldn't come here alone and I doubt she'd let me take Xander all the time." Dawn got off her bike and walked it through the lot, noticing they had some kind of promotion going on.

"If I could get Xander here without him knowing this wasn't the real world... maybe I could convince him we were the last two people and needed to repopulate the Earth," Dawn said, licking her lips as she considered the idea.

"Tell mom I'm spending the weekend with a friend, flip us both over here in the dark while he's asleep, bring us back a couple of days later and play dumb about what happened. After doing _**that**_ with me, he'd have to agree to be my boyfriend," Dawn reasoned.

She sighed heavily a few moments later. "Of course that means I'd be lying to him and taking advantage of him."

"Stupid morals," she complained as she put down her kickstand and looked in the window to the sales room. "Is that a go-cart?!"

 **OoOoOoOoO**

Buffy woke up and slipped out of bed. A good two to three hour nap before patrol made life so much better. She listened to the sounds of the house and dressed as she heard noise downstairs. If her mom was still up, she'd have to be a lot more careful sneaking out.

The sound of someone trying to tiptoe up the stairs, someone who obviously didn't know about how the third and eighth steps creaked, had her rushing to grab a weapon.

As silently as possible, with stake in hand, Buffy crept to her door and peeked into the hallway only to freeze as she saw a naked Merlin peeking into Dawn's room. She narrowed her eyes, wondering just what was going on with those two when he turned around and headed for her mom's room.

Merlin paused at the door to Joyce's room, shifting into Xander for a moment before turning back to normal as he doubted waking to a naked Xander would have quite the reaction he was looking for.

He stood in the hall, tapping his foot for a few seconds before realizing what he should do. "It's all a dream," Merlin whispered as he took on Joyce's form. "Everyone dreams of flying, but what powers do you think would be useful in your day-to-day life? I'm you, so obviously you're still asleep, now come on, let's do some self-discovery here," she said softly before nodding to herself.

Buffy silently sighed as she realized what was going on. She crept out into the hallway and was surprised to find Dawn doing the same.

The pair looked at one another and froze, Dawn's eyes darted down to the stake and then back up to her face. She bit her lips and looked indecisive for a moment before sighing and pointing Buffy towards her room with a determined expression on her face.

Buffy slipped into her little sister's room and was surprised when Dawn grabbed her hand and then touched her vanity mirror, upon which the room changed. Dawn's bed was covered with new clothes and CDs while her vanity overflowed with expensive jewelry.

"We can talk now," said Dawn, flipping on the light.

"Okay, you start," Buffy said.

"I know you're the Slayer and that Xander and Willow help you," Dawn said. "Merlin is a real genie and he's giving Mom powers so she'll be safe. Please don't hurt him."

"Alright," Buffy agreed easily, shocking Dawn.

"Just like that?" asked Dawn.

"I knew he was something strange, so I was spying on you," Buffy admitted. "We already knew and aren't interfering. I was just surprised to see him in our house at one A.M... naked."

"Ah," Dawn said, not sure what to say.

"So, who'd you rob?" Buffy asked.

"Rob?" asked Dawn.

"Yes, rob," Buffy said, dropping her stake and placing both hands on her little sister's shoulders. "I know you can travel through mirrors, which would make it easy to five-finger-discount anything you wanted, but it's still wrong. I admit, when I was your age I did some shoplifting, but nothing on this scale."

Dawn snickered. "Buffy, I have more than just the ability to travel through mirrors. I have a copy of the world and everything in it. I am the richest person who could ever be."

Buffy's jaw dropped and she felt her knees get weak as she realized just what that meant.

 **OoOoOoOoO**

Joyce just stared at her doppelganger. "I usually look more attractive in my own dreams."

Merlin booped her nose, giving her fitness and regeneration.

Joyce's eyes widened as her body changed, the approach of middle age being pushed back as she found herself in better condition than she'd ever been in her life.

"So... powers?" Merlin asked.

"I've dreamed of all sorts of things," Joyce said absently as she examined herself. "Most dreams are about things you don't have in life and overcoming frustration. I've dreamed about being able to seduce men at a glance, being as rich as Midas, or as powerful as a queen."

"And?" Merlin asked intently.

"As a single mother, I find what I'd really like is to have more time and... to understand Buffy," Joyce said honestly.

Merlin examined her closely and placed a hand on her chest. "Not sure how well this will work, but the ability to affect time is now yours." She recalled time being mentally subjective so it should have some effect.

Joyce vanished and reappeared in the blink of an eye, looking much more together. "That's useful for taking bathroom breaks if nothing else," she said with amusement.

"Glad it worked," Merlin said, hiding her surprise. "If you want to understand Buffy... your bloodline is heir to a certain duty that is both a power and a curse. In Buffy, it's active. If you want to really understand her... you would have to take on the duty as well."

"I'd rather take her place," Joyce said. "If it's that heavy a burden it should be my job, not hers."

"That's not up to you," Merlin said with a sigh. "It's not up to me, either. All I can do is offer to let you share her burden."

"Then I'll take it," Joyce said instantly.

Merlin nodded. "Alright, then I dub thee... Slayer," she said, placing a hand on Joyce's head and with the barest flicker of power activating Joyce's dormant bloodline.

 **Typing by: Ordieth**


	18. Chapter 18

"I'm awake," Joyce noted.

"Pardon?" Merlin asked, wondering how he'd messed up.

"People pinch themselves to check and see if they're awake because sensations are muffled in dreams," Joyce explained.

"And since I awoke your bloodline, all your senses are sharper than they have ever been, letting you know you aren't dreaming," Merlin realized.

"Exactly," Joyce agreed. "Now, I think I'm owed some answers."

Merlin snorted in a distinctly unfeminine way. "I just gave you a body that's better than you were in your prime, the ability to mess with time, and the complete Slayer package. How does that make me owe you anything?"

Joyce paused. "How about, I would really appreciate some answers?"

Merlin nodded. "I can answer a couple of questions, but you have to realize I'm in disguise for a reason."

"So 'who' is out," Joyce guessed. "How about 'why?'"

"Buffy and her friends are heroes," Merlin explained, "and I quite like heroes, so I thought I'd give them a leg up, since no one else will."

"How does that lead to me gaining powers?" Joyce asked.

"Evil often targets the family of heroes, so I took a look at those that were close to them to see what I could do to make them a bit safer," Merlin replied.

"Alright," Joyce said with a nod, "I can easily see the sense in that. What can you tell me… about everything?"

Merlin considered the question before replying, "Humans evolved on this planet while demons roamed the Earth. No one knows how, but they eventually forced them out of this dimension, leaving behind demons that are tainted with human blood, making them small and weak in comparison. A number of them aren't even evil to any great degree. Vampires are like cockroaches, everywhere and hard to get rid of. So that's mostly what Slayers face these days."

Joyce pinched herself and winced, before reaching over and pinching Merlin.

"OW!" Merlin exclaimed, quickly covering her breasts.

"Sorry," Joyce apologized, mortified after realizing what she'd done, "just wanted to make sure and didn't realize what I was doing until I'd already done it."

"Slayer impulsiveness is probably tied into their speed and reflexes," Merlin said, rubbing her left breast. "There is going to be a period of adjustment, I'm sure." She scooted out of arms reach after a moment of thought.

"How is it people don't know about… everything?" she asked.

"Both sides work to keep it a war in the shadows," Merlin replied. "Evil, because they know they will lose if it comes out and humanity unites, and Good, because of the amount of collateral damage. Not everything inhuman is evil."

"So if demons exist, do angels?" Joyce asked, leaning back against her headboard.

"I'm not really sure," Merlin admitted. "'Demon' is used to refer to extra-dimensional entities, which can be good or evil, so angels would be called demons as well. Now if you're talking about winged messengers of light doing the work of the creator… maybe. There are some beings who fit the bill, but not all of them are what you would consider good either. It's a confusing mess and part of the reason I prefer to stick to realities where good and evil are more readily identifiable."

"You aren't from this reality?" Joyce asked.

"Not remotely," Merlin replied. "I was on my way to school and stopped to use the restroom. The truth is more complicated, but that's what it all boils down to."

"Lucky for us," Joyce said, sitting on her hands to prevent another round of pinching.

"Very much so," Merlin agreed. "It's entirely possible I was manipulated into coming here by higher powers, but if so, they were really subtle."

Joyce nodded. "So now what?"

"So now you go to sleep and have about a thousand nightmares," Merlin replied. "Slayers have some sort of past-cognition psychic dream thing where they get to see all their predecessors fight and often die. It sucks, but it does warn them of the dangers to come as a Slayer and gives them some basic fighting skills."

"That's why Buffy was sleeping so poorly… it was all true," Joyce said in shock and horror as the reality of the situation finally settled in.

"Try not to blame yourself for more than you are actually guilty of," Merlin suggested as she slid off the bed and stood up. "Buffy could have easily proven she was the Slayer by showing off any number of ways. You made the best decision you could under the circumstances with the facts you had available."

Merlin started shifting back, starting with his feet and working upwards before stopping himself halfway as he remembered he still needed to maintain his cover. "Get as much rest as you can. I have to sneak out."

"Can't you teleport or something?" Joyce asked.

"Yeah, but that's like driving an SUV to visit the neighbors," he replied. "I tend to sneak around for the most part."

"Naked?" she asked.

"I generally use animal forms and just create clothes when I change back to human. I was pushed for time, so I took your form, figuring it would make things strange enough I could convince you that you were dreaming," he replied with a shrug.

"It worked," Joyce admitted.

"Good," he said, walking to the door. "Night," he whispered before sneaking into the hall and closing the door behind himself.

Naturally it was at this point that the door to Dawn's room opened. The two girls froze in surprise at seeing their mother standing naked in the hallway and then in shock as they saw how different 'she' looked.

Merlin bit his lip for a moment and then decided to bluff it out. "What? You've never been curious about how the other half lived? Now if you'll excuse me, since this is my dream, I'm going to raid the freezer for ice cream."

"Does that make Mom our Dad as well?" Dawn asked Buffy, as Merlin made his escape.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

Fred ran as fast as his legs would take him. He was a simple vampire, not going in for all the 'end of the world' and 'bring hell to Earth' schemes. All he wanted was a few simple things, a belly full of blood and the occasional sweet young thing to torture and kill over a couple of days. Was that so wrong?

He could hear his pursuer following him, its unhurried tread his constant companion as no matter what he did he couldn't shake it!

Running out of options, Fred lead it towards a nest of the type of vampires he'd normally avoid. If they liked death and destruction so much, they could make themselves useful and kill the monster chasing him!

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"Come on luv, tell me what's wrong," Spike said, stroking Drusilla's back and rocking her back and forth.

The insane seer looked him straight in the eyes and willed him to understand. "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?"

"Someone put the telly on PBS!" Spike called out.

Drusilla slumped against him, knowing it was too late. She'd failed to get the point across and now they were all doomed.

"You just point out what it is on the screen and we'll figure out how to deal with it, OK luv?" he said as he carried her into the main room.

"Big and blue," she whispered with a shudder. "Children laugh as everything crumbles."

"I vote Chicago," one of the fledglings spoke up. "I hear its nice this time of year."

"This isn't a bloody democracy!" Spike snapped out, glaring at the fledge.

The fledge looked at Drusilla and then back to Spike.

"OK, good point that," Spike decided. "Road trip, let's go people!"

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

Fred burst out of the sewer drain and into… an empty warehouse? He spun around but the place was deserted. It looked like everyone had left in a hurry, leaving scattered possessions about and the television still on.

Fred turned and stared at the nineteen inch RCA as a green frog announced, "…the number three and the letter C!"

"Doomed!" the vampire moaned as a blue monster came on the screen and messily devoured the letter C.

A large blue monster, a dead ringer for the one on the screen, climbed out of the sewer drain and rose up behind Fred yelling, "COOKIE!"

Fred spun around and stared up at the eight-foot-tall blue monster, grabbed his chest and fell limply to the ground.

HK-47 stepped out from behind Murphy. "Incredulous statement: I do believe you have given him a heart attack. I was not even aware that was possible."

Murphy shrugged and stomped on the vampire's chest, driving a rib through its heart and dusting it.

"Observation: Your hypothesis was correct. Even when fleeing in terror, a vampire's foot speed does not exceed human limits, despite their speed and reflexes," the robot noted.

"Leaping faster, but not human," Murphy muttered.

"Statement: They do seem to cling to their meatbag ways, even when they become ex-meatbags."

Murphy raised an eyebrow, clearly amused.

"Grudging acknowledgement: My programming has become corrupted by exposure to… certain amusing groups of meatbags you made me watch."

"More testing," Murphy decided.

"Delighted agreement: Further testing would be quite enjoyable. Are we going to duplicate this test or do you have a different test in mind?"

Murphy grinned as his form shrunk, his fur turning white, while his eyes became blood red.

HK-47 stared at the little white rabbit for a moment before saying, "Statement: You are the best Master I have ever had!"

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"Big pointy teeth!" Drusilla moaned aloud.

"Drive faster!" Spike ordered the vampire who was behind the wheel of the short yellow school bus they had stolen.

The fledge didn't reply, already shifting into a higher gear.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoO**

Merlin stared at the glass tank where flesh was slowly growing over a T-800 frame, most of the internal organs only half grown as of yet.

Ted nodded at him on his way past as he checked the nutrient levels and filtration system.

"That is one hell of an upgrade," Merlin finally said.

"Language please," Ted said politely.

"Sorry," Merlin replied, "just a bit surprised here."

"That's understandable," Ted replied, "I'm still trying to come to terms with it myself. If everything works out right, I'll have the best of both worlds."

"You have fun, I'm going to go get some sleep," Merlin decided.

"Probably a good idea," Ted agreed, "Boys your age need their sleep. If it's not prying, may I ask why you're naked?"

"I went to visit Joyce," Merlin began and then paused as he realized how it sounded.

"My girlfriend Joyce?" Ted asked, crossing his arms.

"Yes, but my intentions were completely non-sexual. I copied her form so she'd think she was dreaming while I empowered her so she'd be less vulnerable to demonic attacks as Dawn requested," Merlin explained.

"Why did that require nudity?" Ted asked curiously, his posture changing to a much more relaxed one.

"It was faster and more convenient to sneak in as a raven," Merlin explained, "and they aren't known for their carrying capacity."

"Since Dawn is the one who requested your help, wouldn't it be simpler to have her hide you in her room so you didn't have to sneak in?" Ted asked, as he considered the situation.

Merlin frowned. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Ted chuckled. "When you get older, and transfer your mind into an android duplicate of yourself, you pick up a bit of wisdom. Next time you need to do something like this, please ask for my help rather than just… winging it."

Merlin snickered, catching the pun. "Fortunately, I only needed to do it once, but I'll consider asking if I run into a similar situation again."

"Mistakes are how we learn," Ted said cheerfully, before returning to doing his checks on the cyborg in the tank.

Merlin chuckled and headed for bed, wondering how much of his impulsiveness was because of his current age as opposed to his normal impulsiveness, which had lead to a number of interesting situations over the years.

"I'll have to watch that," Merlin said as he climbed into bed and looked forward to a good night's sleep.

He could have sworn he'd barely dozed off before he was awoken by a sharp pain in his ear and Dawn yelling, "-and think about what you've done!"

Merlin blinked and looked around while rubbing his ear. Dawn was nowhere to be found and there was a compact on the floor near his bed, reflecting the empty room.

"I guess she figured out it was me," Merlin said, climbing out of bed and stretching. From the complete silence outside and the absence of the majority of the ashy heat he normally felt radiating from the Hellmouth, he knew where he was, he was in Dawn's world.

"I've done all I need to do in Sunnydale for the moment," Merlin said thoughtfully as he walked outside, "and Murphy can simply trump to me when he's finished."

Looking at the sky he was unsurprised to find it was still fairly early. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, concentrated, and walked.

It was much easier this time, without the Hellmouth pulling at him, trying to draw him back, or alter his course.

In three steps he was in a world far removed from any realm the fell portal touched even lightly.

Merlin took a deep breath and let it out. This was much better. He felt clearer and more levelheaded than he had just a few moments ago.

"I completely forgot to guard against being influenced by the Hellmouth," he realized, as he opened his eyes to see where he was.

"Why is there a naked ten year old in your base?" a blond haired, freckled, teen boy asked a blue skinned scientist, his normally goofy gaze promising pain if he didn't like the answer.

"I don't know!" the scientist shrieked, shrinking back in fear.

"I'm eleven," Merlin replied, making a mental note to start wearing pajamas to bed and to never again make any decisions while under the influence of a Hellmouth without double-checking them, "and I'm more than old enough to decide to become a nudist."

A red-haired teen cartwheeled away from a blast of green plasma from a dark haired woman with green skin, both so engrossed in their battle, they didn't even notice the new arrival.

"Fuck!" Merlin screamed as a burst of green plasma slammed him into the wall of the lab, flames destroying skin and burrowing deep into his chest.

 **Typing By: Abyssal Angel**

 **AN: Disney is a long ways away from the Whedonverse.**


	19. Chapter 19

"No!" the two women screamed, rushing over to help.

Merlin coughed up blood while trying to regain his breath, something impossible to do while the plasma ate away at his lungs. He tried to morph, but the pain shredded his concentration.

Looking around wildly for water, he instead spotted plasma immunity and instinctively reached for it, pulling it into himself. Merlin would have sighed in relief as the flames died out, his skin taking on a greenish cast, but he was still in an incredible amount of pain and unable to take a breath.

"You'll be OK, we'll get help!" the redhead swore, fumbling out a communicator.

Merlin stopped trying to breathe for a moment and just stared at her. It was completely hopeless but she was trying to keep his hopes up anyway. It was admirable in a way.

Fortunately, shock began to set in, numbing his senses and allowing him enough clarity of thought to morph into another shape.

"What's that?" the blue skinned scientist asked, his panic fading as Merlin changed forms.

"A green unicorn with wings and a purple mane," the blond-haired boy said, looking confused.

"I- I didn't kill him?" the formerly green skinned young woman asked tearfully.

"No, but it was a close thing," Merlin replied, whinnying in surprise that he could talk in this form.

"What just happened?" the redhead asked.

"I apparently walked into the line of fire, no pun intended, got blasted, stole her powers," he gestured towards the other fighter with his horn, "to keep from dying, and then shape shifted to heal myself."

"So... you're not a young boy?" the blue skinned scientist asked.

Merlin morphed back into his normal form, albeit one with green skin now. "This is my natural form, minus the green skin. My name is Merlin."

"Ron," the blond-haired boy said with a wave, taking the weirdness in stride.

"Kim Possible," the red head introduced herself. "Can we get you some pants?"

The other young woman swept him up in her arms, crying and squeezing him. "I didn't kill you, you're alive!"

"Doctor Drakken," the scientist introduced himself. "Shego, please put the naked pre-teen down now."

"Or wait until I'm older so I can enjoy it more," Merlin added. Seeing the shocked looks on their faces, he shook his head. "I can make myself look older if it'll help."

"You're going to need that sense of humor with my powers," Shego said, setting him back on the floor and trying to pretend she hadn't been crying just moments before.

Merlin examined the power set he'd stolen from her. It allowed the creation of cosmic green plasma while making the owner immune with the added bonus of reinforcing nearly everything by a decent amount. The only downside he saw was that it turned the user's skin color green and didn't have an off switch, though it could be dialed down.

"If I ask how you turned into a unicorn, are you going to answer, 'Magic'?" Ron asked.

"Advanced alien technology," Merlin replied absently as he examined the strange power intently, wishing he had a duplicate he could play with so he didn't have to risk the original. "Though I do a lot of other things with magic." The sudden appearance of a duplicate set of powers along with a large amount of his empowerment energy vanishing came as a bit of a surprise and he smacked himself in the forehead as he realized what he'd done.

"Whoa, what was that for?" Shego asked, grabbing his hand.

"Just realizing that despite reminding myself not to make assumptions, I was still making assumptions," Merlin explained. "Do you want your powers back?" He increased the ability to control the flow of power and tried to add a color option. It looked like only the basic color set was available, but at least there were some options now.

"She's a villain," Kim spoke up. "Sorry, Shego."

Shego chuckled. "It's true, I am," she said with a shrug, completely unrepentant.

"And yet, you were horrified at the fact that you might have killed me," Merlin pointed out.

"Just because she's a villain doesn't mean she's a monster or heartless," Ron spoke up, defending the villain.

"I wasn't trying to say she was," Kim quickly defended, "I was just saying if she had her powers back, she'd use them to commit crimes."

"Very true," Shego agreed cheerfully.

Merlin reached up and tapped her nose while returning her powers, green flowing across her skin once more. "If we were all the same, life would be boring," he told her.

"Can I offer you a hoodie?" Ron asked, pulling a spare one out of his backpack. "I mean, I get the whole nudist thing, but Drakken's bases aren't clothing optional normally."

"Except for you," Shego teased while playing with her plasma, finding it a lot easier to control than normal and greatly relieved to have it back, much to her surprise.

"Not on purpose and I always keep my boxers on," Ron quickly replied.

Merlin accepted the hoodie and put it on. Claiming to be a nudist was just a quick excuse to avoid a long explanation anyway. He underlined the mental note to question all decisions made while under the influence of a Hellmouth.

"Why is your skin still green?" Drakken asked curiously.

"It'd be a bit too easy to defeat you without your powers," Kim teased Shego.

"You have no idea how much I limit myself in our little spars," Shego replied with a smirk.

Merlin tapped Kim on the nose, green flaring over her skin as it drained from his own. "There, you are on equal footing now."

"That's kinda cruel," Shego said, shaking her head. "You should take them back. I'm used to being looked at as a freak. She's not."

"I added on off switch and a tint control," Merlin explained with a smile.

Shego's skin turned pale again and she examined her hands with a smile. "How?"

"Advanced alien technology?" Ron guessed.

"Magic," Merlin replied, while taking a more careful look at the girls. The two women were quickly engrossed in examining how much control they had over the plasma, trying to outdo one another in shape creation. They didn't appear to have any other enhancements beyond the cosmic green plasma.

Turning to examine the two men, he was surprised to see one had some form of primal mystical enhancement while the other had an intelligence boost, but both their powers were color coded blue and interfered in their social skills, albeit in different ways.

"What is your story?" Ron asked eagerly, as they followed Drakken back to the control panel.

"And would you mind putting on some more clothes please?" Drakken added. "I get that nudity is your thing, but it's making me a bit uncomfortable, plus it's against OSHA regulations."

"Sure," Merlin agreed. "Got a catalog of clothing?"

"The latest issue of ESQ, Evil Scientist Quarterly, has a nice selection of the latest trends," Drakken offered, pulling a copy of the magazine out of the inside of his dark blue lab-coat, "but I was hoping to see you fully dressed before the overnight package service arrived."

"Are you going to magic up pants or make illusionary ones?" Ron asked excitedly.

"Magic up," Merlin replied, accepting the magazine and opening it up. He loved the way jaws dropped when he reached into pictures and pulled things out, even if he pretended not to notice.

"Good choice," Drakken said as Merlin pulled out the complete JR evil scientist suit which consisted of a high quality white tuxedo with a black lab-coat and mirrored safety goggles.

"It would have looked better with the colors reversed," Ron disagreed, neither one looking the least bit surprised or impressed.

Merlin found himself pouting as the two argued over fashion as he dressed. As the two descended into name calling, Merlin decided it was their reduced social skills that were at fault. Fortunately, that was easily fixed by a simple mental enhancement, targeting their ability to empathize and understand others reasons and motivations.

The two immediately stopped fighting, suddenly embarrassed by their own actions, while Merlin used the last of his energy to give Drakken a fitness package and the both of them tint control. Unlike Shego and Kim, their powers didn't have any limitations in that regard, which he found ironic since women could actually see more colors than men.

"If anyone knows about being clumsy, it's me," Drakken said. "Casting aspersions on another for a fault I share is the height of hypocrisy."

"Much like my comments on your plans being idiotic," Ron pointed out with a grin.

Merlin smirked and decided to leave, his ability to empower others was exhausted for the moment, insuring it would continue to grow stronger... He paused and considered that fact. Was it possible he was gaining more uses for it as it grew in strength? It would explain some things.

"My good deeds are done for the day. Later," Merlin said, turning to leave and vanishing between one step and the next.

"What a strange little boy," Drakken said, "and yes I realize the irony of me saying that."

"What the?!" Kim exclaimed as her skin turned blue and the green plasma she'd been manipulating vanished.

"What did you do?" Shego asked, concerned.

"Well, Merlin said he added tint control as well as an on off switch so I thought I'd try for blue, but I can't seem to create any flames now," Kim explained.

"And you look like my brother Hego," Shego teased.

Kim opened her mouth to reply and paused. Turning, she grabbed a metal handrail and easily ripped it from the wall. "Tint control," Kim said with a grin.

Shego held up one of her hands and grinned as the green changed to blue. "Game on," she told Kim, while making a fist.

"We're doomed," Drakken said in horror as the two superstrong women squared off.

"They'll bring the mountain down around us," Ron said, "unless..."

Drakken and Ron looked at each other and then down at the self destruct button.

 ***SELF DESTRUCT IN 30 SECONDS!*** the alarm blared.

"Next time!" the two blue skinned women swore before running to grab their partners and escape the exploding fortress.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

It felt good to help people out, Merlin decided smugly. He'd helped some people and discovered a new use for one of his abilities, and a hole in his defenses, because apparently plasma completely ignored any resistance to fire he had.

He wrinkled his nose at the stench of the warehouse around him. He'd focused on a purely scientific world that didn't allow for any 'super science' shenanigans as he'd stepped between worlds. Since Harry Potter was simple science and hidden magic, he'd be one step closer to his goal and he could take a break and recheck all his assumptions so far.

"I have all of eternity, why do I spend so much time rushing around?" Merlin asked himself.

He felt a barely perceptible tug at the core of his being.

"Oh yeah, giant monster coming from the sea to step on me," he said with a sigh. "And Harry Potter style magic has a greater rate of fire and versatility than any other type I'm aware of."

"Definitely quicker than what I..." he trailed off. Merlin had learned the magic traditions of the Logrus and the Pattern, but John was the one who knew of Harry Potter. He'd forgotten he was John Flint!

"I've been John Flint for a lot less time than I remember being Merlin of Amber," he noted. "I'm using all of Merlin's skills for John's goals because Merlin... despite centuries of knowledge and training, is more mentally restricted than John."

He took a couple of deep breaths, ignoring the smell, and centering himself. "I can accept the identity of Merlin, but I have to think like John, which I've pretty much already been doing, so this was just a waste of time," Merlin said with a chuckle.

"It's nice being crazy enough that your own insanity doesn't bother you," Merlin said cheerfully, "or to quote the Tick, 'Sanity is a one trick pony, all you get is one trick, rational thought. But when you're good and crazy, chum, the sky's the limit!'"

"Hey Loony," someone called out from behind him, "gimme all your money!"

Merlin turned and saw a young man who couldn't have been more than nineteen, dressed in a stained gray hoodie and faded blue Levis with the knees torn out. Reaching into his lab-coat, he shifted shadow and grabbed a bundle of five hundred dollar bills and tossed it to him.

The teen caught it and just stared in shock.

"It's fifty thousand dollars," Merlin said helpfully.

"B-but what do I do with it?" the teen asked, looking completely overwhelmed.

"What were you planning to do with the money you got from me?" Merlin asked curiously.

"Get something to eat, maybe grab a motel room for a night if there was enough," the teen answered nervously.

"OK, now if you'd gotten five hundred from me, what would you have done?" Merlin said gently.

"Get Julie and hop a bus to somewhere where I could get a job and she didn't have to..." his voice trailed off.

"Buy a cheap car that will get you away from here," Merlin suggested. "Just grab her and go, don't let anyone know, don't take anything you can replace. Drive west and find a college town. A young couple with money won't even raise an eyebrow. Hit the local community college for some classes and check the job postings."

"I-I could do that," he said with a slowly growing smile.

Merlin reached into his jacket and pulled out a wad of smaller bills. "Hide that stack until you get there, use this and don't flash it around."

He accepted it looking a bit uncomfortable. "Thank you for... letting me mug you?" he offered.

"Don't mention it," Merlin replied. "Get you and your girl some place you can actually make it and we'll call it good, OK?"

"Yeah," he said, hiding the cash on his person and pocketing the knife. "We can make it!" He turned and vanished into the dark.

Not wanting to be interrupted again, Merlin subtly shifted his form into what he thought of as his Lon Chaney impression, a very light mix of wolf and man. The smell of the place was even worse to his sensitive nose, but between his heightened sense of smell and hearing, it was easy enough to search the place and ensure it was empty.

Most of the place was filled with rotting trash that had been dumped in there over the years. A rather common sight in the slums, the fire escape outside was the only way to reach the second floor and it looked like it was hanging on by a single bolt.

Stepping back inside, Merlin took a deep breath and focused on the Logrus, the symbol of chaos. The shadows rose and he pulled the interior of the warehouse into them. Concentrating on what he wanted the place to change into, caused his surroundings to warp and shift.

Releasing the breath he'd taken, Merlin relaxed, the shadows drawing away to reveal the interior of a pizza place and arcade center he'd enjoyed as a child, or at least a nearby version drawn from the shadows.

He grinned at the animatronics singing their hokey song on stage. He was in the mood for some pizza and mindless video games to relax with.

"Join us, be our friend! Or just be stuck in defend!" the animatronics sang out as Merlin wandered around, looking for pizza.

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel**


	20. Chapter 20

Merlin followed his nose to the smell of fresh cooked pizza and found the dining area, where an animatronic anthropomorphic version of a yellow bird, wearing a bib that read 'Let's Eat' was dutifully preparing pizza behind a 'sneeze barrier' so the customers could watch their food being prepared.

He glanced up at the prices as he approached the register and pulled a ten out of nowhere. "One large pizza and a pitcher of Coke please."

The animatronic froze for a moment, its eyes scanning up and down his frame before replying in an overly cutesy female voice, "Right away, sir! What would you like on your pie?"

"Anything already available that doesn't have anchovies," Merlin replied cheerfully, wondering how complex its AI was.

"How about Hawaiian?" she asked, collecting his money and entering it in the register, placing a dollar and seventy-three cents on the counter in front of him.

"That would be great, thanks," Merlin replied, pocketing his change.

"You're welcome," she replied. "I'll deliver it to your seat in just a moment."

Merlin chose a booth against the wall and slid in. He'd actually planned on cooking his own pizza, but this was more entertaining.

The yellow bird animatronic walked over to the table, making surprisingly little sound for its size, and placed a large Hawaiian pizza, a pitcher of Coke, a cup full of ice, and a knife and fork wrapped in napkins down. "Enjoy your meal and if you need anything, just call for Chika!"

"I will, thanks," Merlin replied, pouring himself a glass. He relaxed and enjoyed the atmosphere. "I wonder if they have Killer Instinct?"

He picked up a slice of pizza, but before he could take a bite there was a flash of silver and half the slice fell to the table.

"Girl, ask questions before attacking," a young man in a green wetsuit including a mask with yellow piping ordered with a frustrated groan.

A young girl dressed in the strangest combination of school girl and soldier outfit, in purple to match her hair, snorted. "I was just getting his attention, if it was an attack, I'd have sunk it in his fuckin' temple!"

"It's still rude," Merlin pointed out, after scanning them and discovering they had no powers.

"So's fucking with someone else's lair!" the girl growled out, pulling a bladed staff off her back.

"How did you do all this?" the man in green asked curiously.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Merlin replied honestly.

"Why don't you try anyway," the purple haired girl ordered.

"I shifted shadow," Merlin answered. He held up the remains of his slice of pizza and pushed it into shadow, making sure they saw it.

"And that means?" Purple Girl asked, looking unimpressed while Green stared wide eyed.

Merlin picked up another slice. "Magic," he replied, leaning back and taking a bite so the knife she threw would miss.

The second one she'd palmed sliced the pizza right in front of his lips.

"Hit-Girl!" the man in green yelled wide eyed.

"What?!" she yelled right back, annoyance clear in her tone. "He's exactly the type of asshole who would expect the first knife and lean back just enough to make it miss him."

Merlin swallowed and opened his mouth to reply before frowning. "I can't even deny that one, can I?" He was surprised at how skilled she was.

"So back to the question," Hit-Girl growled. "How and why did you fuck with our lair?"

"Magic is still as good an answer as any and it looked like a good, out of the way place to kick back," Merlin answered honestly.

"Fine, prove it," she challenged. "Show some magic."

"Name a hand sized object," Merlin replied, before taking a drink of Coke. "Something I would have no way of knowing you'd ask for in advance."

"BLT," the Green Guy snapped out. "What? I'm hungry," he said in reply to her glare.

Merlin shifted shadow and pulled out a BLT on a plate and set it down.

"Could be subliminal suggestion," Hit-Girl pointed out, sounding unsure herself.

"A pouch full of jewels," Green said.

Merlin rolled his wrist before reaching out and dropping a small velvet bag on the table. He picked up another slice of pizza while they stared.

"You goin' open it?" Hit-Girl asked.

"No," Green replied after a moment. "I want to enjoy the dream for a minute."

She rolled her eyes, but it was clear she was trying not to grin.

"Satisfied?" Merlin asked.

"Not remotely," she replied. "I mean, the tricks are as impressive as your makeup, but magic doesn't exist."

Merlin whistled so they'd both look at him and he shifted back to normal. "You sure about that?" he asked with a grin.

"Not as much as I was a second ago," she admitted. "I thought you were a midget," she added after a moment.

"No, just a bit... young," he said.

"I'm ready to believe," Green offered, slipping into the other side of the booth and grabbing the BLT and small velvet bag. He opened the bag and poured its contents on the table. "I just realized I have no way of telling if these are real or not," he said as he stared at the pile of glittering gems.

"They exist," Merlin offered, grabbing yet another slice, but waiting to see if Hit-Girl was going to object to him eating it.

She smirked and flicked her fingers to go ahead, before retrieving her knives from the wall, climbing over the green guy to do so.

"I actually meant if they were valuable and not just colored glass," he explained, scooping them back into the bag.

"Can't guarantee they're types the locals will recognize but they are gems," Merlin assured him. "So... why stick a lair in piles of garbage? It had to have been small since I didn't notice it."

"Try the whole top floor," she retorted, before stealing a piece of pizza.

"I didn't mess with that," Merlin assured her. "I only changed the bottom floor."

"Yeah, but all the trash and crap kept people from coming around and finding our place," she snapped out angrily.

"What are you?" Green asked.

"Traveler, just passing through," Merlin assured them. "I keep exhausting myself, so I keep having to stop and catch my breath. And since I'm also a busybody I keep helping people, slowing me down even more."

"That... isn't really helpful," Green said.

"Hero or Villain?" Hit-Girl demanded, stealing his coke and taking a swig.

Merlin nodded. "Hero, would be the closest of the two, though I don't look for trouble or get into fights. I do help people, as I've mentioned."

"Could be helping villains," she pointed out.

"True," Merlin agreed, thinking of the last world. "Depends on the person. Some of the villains I ran into weren't bad people, just pushed into bad situations or did stupid shit, but about eighty percent of the people I help are obvious heroes by anyone's standards."

"Could you use your 'magic' to make people ignore the entire building unless we brought them here?" Green asked. "Because you kinda screwed us here."

"I could throw something up that would hide it from everything but crazy people and children," Merlin offered after a moment's thought.

"Why wouldn't it work against them?" Hit-Girl asked.

"If you have to tell someone not to break into the zoo to try and eat the hippos, chances are they are so crazy that adding another voice in their head telling them not to do something wouldn't really have that big an effect," Merlin explained.

"And the reason it won't work on children?" Green asked.

"Same as above," Merlin said. "Children are completely nuts. When your brain is continually flooded by ungodly amounts of hormones and an architecture that is always being rewritten... Telepaths avoid children for a reason."

The two heroes exchanged glances, with the young man in green shrugging. "We dress up and fight crime, I'm not going to make any strong claims of sanity here."

"Kick-Ass," the young man in green said offering his hand.

"Merlin of Amber," he introduced himself.

"So, you're a mage and werewolf?" Hit-girl asked. "That sounds like some serious munchkin kinda bullshit."

"I'm an Amberite, munchkin bullshit is in my blood," Merlin assured her.

"So, how do you do the magic thing?" Hit-Girl asked. "Wave your wand, sacrifice a chicken, piss in the corners?"

Merlin laughed and grabbed another slice of pizza.

"No, seriously," Hit-girl said, "how does it work?"

"Depends on the world," Merlin replied. "Here, a combination of words and physical motions should be enough."

"I thought you'd need rare herbs and the blood of a virgin or something," Kick-Ass admitted.

"Useful," Merlin agreed, "And if you guys were doing magic, you would probably need it, but as I said, munchkin is in my blood, I have more than enough power not to need anything."

"Virgin blood?" Hit-Girl said, shaking her head. "I don't see how having a cock in you or sticking yours in someone would really change your blood all that much."

"And you'd be right," Merlin told her, "most of the time it refers to how innocent someone is, not if they've had sex."

"That changes which of us could use our blood," Kick-Ass said thoughtfully.

"Did you just assume I was a virgin?" Hit-girl asked with a glare.

"Yes," Kick-ass said, not in the least intimidated. "I figure you've got some high standards for whoever you hook up with and I haven't seen anyone who really fits the bill."

Hit-Girl smirked. "You are definitely the more innocent of the two of us."

"What does that mean?" he asked, not having expected that response.

"Means reality hasn't popped your cherry yet, you're... idealistic," she explained. "Don't change," she ordered.

"Wasn't planning on it," he replied. "Of course now I have to worry about being used as a virgin sacrifice and even my long and sordid sexual history doesn't help keep me safe."

"Long and sordid?" she snickered.

"Left hand and right," Merlin offered, making her burst out laughing and Kick-Ass snicker.

"But seriously, I just need a day or two to catch my breath and take a look around and I should be able to set up some protections for you."

"Works for me," Kick-Ass said.

"I suppose you can crash here," Hit-Girl agreed, "long as you aren't going to fuck with anything else."

"We don't have any beds here, do we?" Kick-Ass asked.

Hit-girl just stared at him. "You never poked around?"

"No, you set the place up so I thought it would be rude. I figured if I needed to see something you'd let me know."

"You are way too polite sometimes," she said, shaking her head.

"On the plus side I can definitely show you how to use his blood in magical rituals," Merlin offered.

"Great, I know about magic being real for five minutes and someone's already trying to convince my partner to use me as a human sacrifice," Kick-Ass complained.

"A couple of drops of blood does not a human sacrifice make," Merlin said, as Hit-Girl laughed.

"That's it, for my own protection, I'm browsing 4-Chan," Kick-Ass said.

"That's probably the first time those words have ever been spoken before," Hit-Girl said with a snicker.

 **Typing by: Abyssal Angel & pixelherodev**

 **TN-AA: Dang it you went and made me hungry for pizza! I could do with a good slice of Hawaiian right now...**

 **TN-P: Also, that's probably the first time those words have even been thought.**


End file.
